


Tales from Pete's World 13 - And If You Wrong Us

by SciFiFanForever



Series: Tales from Pete's World [13]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 57,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24126859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SciFiFanForever/pseuds/SciFiFanForever
Summary: Another story of the Metacrisis Doctor and his wife Rose working for Torchwood in Pete’s World. It contains a trip to the past, memories of previous lives, kidnappings and ambushes. It seems that someone has got it in for the Institute.
Relationships: Jackie Tyler/Pete Tyler (Pete's World), Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Series: Tales from Pete's World [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/131940
Comments: 43
Kudos: 21





	1. Dinner At Donna's

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had the overarching plot for a couple of years now but didn’t know what to do with it. Lately, with the current global situation, I’ve been revisiting my notes and writing new chapters to fit around the main plot.
> 
> Also, I’ve finally decided on a location for the fictitious Tyler Mansion, as I needed a school for Tony to attend. I freeze framed the episode “Rise of the Cybermen”, where Pete pulls up outside the mansion. You can clearly see a cottage on top of a grassy bank (Alistair and Alice’s place), and a wood beyond. Although the house doesn't exist, you can see where I think it would be on Google maps if you enter “Queenswood Road, Highgate” in the search pane. 
> 
> I hope you like this attempt. Thanks to TARDIS Wiki for canon information and Chakoteya for the episode transcripts I used for reference.
> 
> This chapter follows on from the events in Xenogenesis and explores Donna’s life in Pete’s World. John and Rose find one difference in Donna’s life which they can do something about. Events are mentioned from the novel “Beautiful Chaos” by Gary Russell. ISBN 1-84607-563-7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter follows on from the events in Xenogenesis and explores Donna’s life in Pete’s World. John and Rose find one difference in Donna’s life which they can do something about. Events are mentioned from the novel “Beautiful Chaos” by Gary Russell. ISBN 1-84607-563-7

****

**Chapter 1**

**Dinner At Donna's**

**Dunwich.**

**Hampshire.**

**Friday** **23** **rd** **October 2026.**

**19:12.**

Delores the DeLorian drove along Oppley Road towards the village of Dunwich carrying Doctor John Smith and his wife, Rose. A white sign with black lettering was illuminated by the headlights which read:

**DUNWICH.**

**Please drive carefully through the village.**

A triangular Green ornamented by five fine elms and a white-railed pond stood at the heart of Dunwich. The war memorial stood in the church-ward corner of the Green, and spaced out around the sides were a church, the vicarage, the Sickle and Scythe Inn, a smithy, the post office, a shop, and a number of cottages, one of which belonged to a couple called Shuan and Donna Templeton. Donna Templeton being "Pete's World's" version of Donna Noble from John and Rose's universe.

'Park behind the Land Rover please Delores,' John said, and the car slowed and parked itself alongside the narrow pavement.

The gull wing doors lifted up, and John and Rose climbed out. Rose reached back into the foot well and took out a bottle of Pinot Noir, before straightening up and looking around the Green. The ornate, old fashioned street lamps had modern LED bulbs in them and cast oases of white light on the narrow pavements. She could see a welcoming glow of yellowish light coming through the windows and the entry door of the The Scythe and Stone Inn.

'Oh, it's so lovely here,' she said as she breathed in the crisp evening air.

'Yeah. You wouldn't think it had been involved in a case of xenogenesis, would you?' John replied.

He was referring to an incident a month ago where the village had been put into a coma for 36 hours whilst alien robots impregnated the women of the village.

'Well, hopefully they can put that episode behind them now,' Rose said as she approached the door of Number Three and rang the doorbell.

['That must be them,'] they heard Donna say from inside.

['I'll get the door,'] Shaun replied.

They heard footsteps approaching, and the door opened to reveal the smiling face of a man with dark skin, and short, afro hair. He had a broad nose, full lips, and a strong jawline.

'Hi. Come on in,' Shaun said, kissing cheeks with Rose and shaking John's hand. 'How was your journey?'

'Nice and easy,' John replied. 'The car did the driving.'

Rose handed over the bottle of wine and Shaun looked at the label. 'Oh, that's perfect. Thank you . . . Here, let me get your coats.'

Rose slipped off her long, warm, winter coat. Underneath she was wearing jeans, sweatshirt and ankle high boots. John also wore jeans, with a ribbed Aran sweater under his long, brown coat.

'Hi you two,' Donna called as she popped her head around the kitchen door.

'Hi Donna,' they called back.

'How's it going?' Rose asked, referring to the meal Donna was preparing.

'Coming along nicely. Have a seat in the front room an' Shaun'll get you a drink.'

Shaun led them through to a cosy room with oak beams on the ceiling and a stone fireplace. 'Make yourself comfortable and I'll get the drinks. What d'you fancy?'

'Have you got a cider?' Rose asked.

'Thatchers Gold OK?' Shaun enquired.

'My favourite,' Rose replied.

'Donna's too,' Shaun told her. 'John?'

'I'll have a beer if you've got one.'

'I've got a bottle of draught Monk's, filled from the pub's tap.'

'Oh, now you're talking,' John said with an open mouthed grin.

Shaun gave a grin of his own and went through to the kitchen, whilst John and Rose sat on the comfortable sofa. There was a plate of nibbles on the low table in front of them. A few minutes later, Shaun returned with two pint glasses in his hand. Donna followed him in with her own glass of cider, and carrying Shaun's pint of Monk's Ale.

'Cheers,' Donna said, holding her glass up in a salute.

'Cheers,' everyone replied and took a mouthful of their drinks.

'Ho ho ho,' John said in foam moustached appreciation. 'That is a decent brew.'

'Yeah. And it's only a short walk across the Green to get a refill,' said Shaun.

'Help yerselves to the nibbles,' Donna told them. 'Or should I call them horderves?' she said in a posh voice.

'Oh yeah. You said you were goin' to do French on the phone.' Rose remembered.

'You can call them what you like,' John said as he finished one off. 'They're delicious.'

'So what's on the menu then?' Rose asked.

Donna gave her an excited smile. 'You've got Soupe à l'oignon with croutons and melted cheese on top for starters.'

'Ooh. That sounds nice,' Rose said.

'Yeah. An' the onions are caramelized in brandy,' she added. 'Then you've got Coq au vin for the main course, and a chocolate soufflé for dessert . . . Which reminds me. I'd better get back to the kitchen.'

Ten minutes later, they were sitting around the dining table enjoying their soup.

'So, how's things at the Institute then?' Donna asked to start a conversation.

'Oh, y'know. The usual mix of weird people and weird happenings,' Rose said with a smile. 'What about you? How y'gettin' on with yer new memories?'

Donna had been invited to the Blue Watch Babes weekly night in, where they drink, have snacks and watch a chick flick DVD. Donna had been in awe of everyone there, and didn't believe she should be there just because she looked like the other universe's Donna. Rose had linked minds with Donna, and with John's help had transferred her and John's memories of Donna Noble into her mind.

'Oh, brilliant . . . Mind you, some of the dreams I've been havin' . . .'

John chuckled. 'That's your brain sorting the new memories into some semblance of order. It'll calm down after a while.'

'What kind of dreams have y'been havin'?' Rose asked.

'Well. It's like I can remember all the things yer put in me 'ead, but when I dream about 'em, it's like I'm living the memories,' Donna explained. 'Last night I dreamt about those angry little hobbits that looked like Mr Potato Heads. An' they were poisonin' the air.'

'Sontarans,' John said. 'A clone race who are bred for battle.'

'That's them. An' that geeky kid swapped places with ya and blew 'em up.'

John nodded sadly. 'Luke Rattigan. I was trying to get the Sontarans to abandon their plans and go home.'

'Like that was ever gonna happen,' Donna scoffed. 'Someone had to stop 'em, and you're just too nice.'

Rose smiled and reached for John's hand and gave it a squeeze. 'Yer right there. John always looks for the good in people . . . Even if sometimes there isn't any.'

John smiled at them both. 'There's always hope.'

'I'll drink to that,' Shaun said, trying to lighten the mood. He lifted his glass of wine. 'To hope.'

'To hope,' they all replied and then continued their meal.

'Oh. And just be warned that some of the memories are sad and might be a bit overwhelming,' John warned her. He was thinking of their time on the planet Messaline, where a young woman had been produced from some of his cells and she had sacrificed herself to save him.

'Yeah, an' scary. Don't forget scary. The other night I dreamt about Pompeii,' Donna told him. 'Woke up in a right sweat. An' it wasn't from the heat I can tell ya.' John and Rose snorted a laugh. 'Oh, an' some of my memories are gettin' a bit muddled when it comes to my family.'

'How so?' John asked with a frown.

'Well, I remember my dad havin' his heart attack, but now I've got this 'orrible memory of 'im dyin', an' mum was in pieces an' grandad moved in with us . . .'

'Ah, yes. That was our Donna,' John said. 'Donna in the old universe. Her dad died.'

'But I thought . . .' Rose started and then picked up on John's thoughts. He'd felt a change in the timeline. It was subtle, and he wasn't a full Time Lord, so he couldn't get all the details.

'Your father survived then?' John asked.

'Yeah. He was at the match, watchin' his team, West Ham. He'd said he had a bit of indigestion before he went out, so he took a couple of antacids before he went,' Donna remembered. 'While he was at the ground, he started to get some chest pains.'

'Oh god, Donna. What happened?' Rose asked in concern.

'Well that was the weird bit. Two paramedics came running up from the match side and seemed to know he was havin' a heart attack. They whisked 'im off to hospital and he had some stents put in his heart as soon as he got there. The doctors told me someone had phoned ahead to alert the cath lab that they had an incoming patient.'

'How weird is that?' John said with a lopsided smile.

'I know,' Donna agreed.

They finished the main course and moved on to the dessert.

'So how's your grandad?' Rose asked. She had fond memories of a lovable old soldier.

'Oh, he's fine. Still livin' in his old house with Netty,' Donna told them.

'That would be Greenwich Observatory Astronomer, Henrietta Goodhart,' John recalled from the old universe. He'd met her when the Mandragora Helix had tried to take over the Earth.

'You know her?' Donna asked in surprise.

'The old universe version, yeah,' John said with a smile. 'Does she still wear the tweed skirts and jackets?'

Donna laughed. 'You DO know her.'

'And the feathers in her hats.'

This time Donna howled with laughter. 'I swear they get bigger every time I see her.'

The delicious chocolate soufflé was quickly finished off, and they took their drinks through to the front room and relaxed in front of the fire.

'You have a lovely home here,' Rose said, snuggling into the sofa. 'It's so cosy and comfortable.'

'Yeah. We were really lucky. We came back from New York just at the right time,' Shaun told them. He was an architect, and they had moved to New York after they were married, where he worked for the award winning firm, Freecell Architecture. After gaining a few years experience and making a name for himself, they had returned to Great Britain and bought the cottage.

'Mind you, it was a bit of a mess when we bought it,' Donna informed them. 'That's why we got it at a knock down price.'

'But I knew some of the contractors that we use on our building projects,' Shaun added. 'They gave us "mates rates" on the building work and the interior design.'

'That was handy,' Rose said.

'Yeah. When they'd finished, it was perfect,' Donna said, and then went thoughtful. 'And then "that" happened.'

'Oh, don't let that spoil it for you,' Rose said, reaching out and squeezing her hand. 'With time, it'll pass.'

'And how is the village?' John asked.

'Gettin back to normal,' Donna replied. 'They're a pretty stoic bunch. I see Jane Crankhart in the shop now and again. I think she still misses Harry.'

'Not as much as Alf Wait does,' Shaun said light heartedly.

'Harry Crankhart. That was the man on the steps of the pub?' John confirmed. Eleven people had died in the "attack" on the village, which the locals referred to as "The Narcolepsy".

'Yeah. That's 'im,' Donna agreed. 'They used to enjoy havin' heated discussions about their differin' methods of farmin'.' She looked at John with a quizzical expression. 'I've been wonderin' why you can't go back in that box of yours and stop it from happenin'.'

'Ah. How to explain the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux,' John said as he remembered trying to explain it to Martha when the Carrionites tried to take over the world in 1599.

'How's about the house of cards analogy you used after I tried to save Dad in the old universe,' Rose suggested. After she had naively tried to save her father, the Doctor had explained why she wasn't able to.

'Oh yeah. That works,' John said with a smile. 'Now. Imagine you start building a house of cards. You build the first row by leaning the cards against each other and put cards across the top, yeah?'

Donna and Shaun nodded, although they were uncertain of where this was going.

'Now imagine those cards represent events in people's lives in the village. Being born, getting married, having children etcetera.'

'Oh I see,' Donna said.

'Then you build the next layer. New events built on top of the past events and so on.'

'Ahh. An' if you try to alter an event on a layer below, it causes all the events above to collapse,' Donna realised.

'Exactly,' John confirmed. 'Now if the cards are still in a deck and haven't been arranged in a structure, we can go and alter those cards.'

'Shuffle the deck yer mean?' Donna asked.

'Sort of, yeah,' John said, scratching the back of his head. 'But when they become part of our time line, they get arranged into a house of cards and it becomes tricky to change them. For example. In the old universe, I took Rose back to see her dad, and she intervened in events and tried to stop him from dying.'

'But I thought you said he'd died when you were little,' Donna remembered.

'He did,' Rose said sadly. 'He was SO brave and courageous.'

'Pete Tyler was a major event in the timeline,' John explained.

Rose took over the explanation. 'My dad would have become a millionaire. We'd have moved out of the Powell Estate. I would have gone to a different school and got my qualifications. I wouldn't have had Mickey as a boyfriend. I wouldn't have worked at Henrick's, wouldn't have met the Doctor, wouldn't have saved him from the Autons, and . . .'

'Cascade failure of reality,' John finished. 'Someone like your dad though,' John said, looking at Donna. 'He would carry on living his life with no major change to future events.'

'And you can see all of that?' Donna asked.

'I used to be able to, yeah,' John told her. 'Now I just get a feeling of when something can change, when it can't, and when it has already changed.'

'Blimey,' Donna said, blowing out air.

'Yeah,' Rose agreed. 'Remember Pompeii. There was nothin' John . . . the Doctor, could do to stop it.'

'Oh yeah. I remember how upset he was, an' I kept blamin' 'im for not preventin' it,' Donna recalled guiltily.

'You weren't to know,' John said kindly. 'But now you know why the dead have to remain dead. It's not fair at times, but it's part of the circle of life.'

'Oh that was in The Lion King,' Donna remembered. 'Was that what it was about, birth and death?'

'Yeah, that's it,' Rose said. 'Did you ever see the stage play on Broadway? We went to see it while we were over there.'

'Oh yeah. It was brilliant. An' I bet we went to the same performance, the luck I had tryin' to bump into ya,' Donna joked.

'Oh yeah. You were there at the same time we were settin' up Torchwood New York, were'nt ya,' Rose realised. 'You should have come an' said hello.'

'It wasn't for the lack of trying,' Shaun said with a lopsided smile. 'She "just happened to be passing" nearly every day,' he told them, air quoting with his fingers and causing everyone to laugh.

'I mean, it's not like some obsessive fan has never tried to come up to ya and say hello, is it?' Donna said with a grin.

'Oh don't,' Rose said with a laugh, and then noticed the clock above the fireplace. 'Oh. Look at the time. We'll be outstayin' our welcome.'

'You could never do that,' Donna said earnestly.

'Still. We'd better be goin'.'

'If you're sure,' Shaun said. 'I'll get your coats.'

Donna and Shaun showed them to the front door, where they hugged and shook hands, before stepping out into the cold October night air. John and Rose waved from inside the car as they slowly drove around the Green and headed back along Oppley Road towards London.

'You felt a change in Donna's timeline, didn't ya?' Rose asked her husband.

'Yeah. Because Geoff Noble isn't yet part of our timeline, and we don't have to directly meet him or intervene in the course of events . . .'

'We can give Donna a gift that she'll never even know about.'

John looked at her and waggled his eyebrows. 'Fancy a trip to Upton Park in the TARDIS?'

Rose squealed a laugh. 'Oh yeah!'

'Say, around fifteenth of May, two thousand and eight?'

'Definitely.'

**West Ham United Boleyn Ground Stadium,**

**East London.**

**Thursday, 15** **th** **May, 2008.**

John walked along the compressed red gravel, between the advertising hoardings and the pitch, past the Centenary Stand. An official in a high visibility tabard approached him.

'Excuse me sir. You're not allowed on the pitch.'

John took out his wallet of psychic paper. 'Doctor John Smith. There's a man up there having a heart attack. Those two paramedics there,' he said, pointing to the green coveralled paramedics on standby to take injured players to hospital. 'They need to get up there right now and get him to the Cath Lab at Newham University Hospital. I'll phone ahead and tell them to expect him.'

The official looked shocked. 'Of course doctor . . . YOU TWO. MEDICAL EMERGENCY IN THE CENTENARY STAND!'

The two paramedics came running over. One of them had a huge backpack over his shoulder. 'What's the emergency?' one of them asked.

John held up his psychic paper again. 'Myocardial Infarction. Patient's name is Geoff Noble. Fifth row up, third seat along. I'll call Newham and let them know to expect you.'

'Right you are doctor. Dave, you grab the chair and I'll go and assess the patient.'

The medic named Dave ran back to where they had been waiting and picked up a collapsible, emergency chair in which a patient could be securely strapped and transported to the ambulance. The other medic sprinted up the steps to find his patient.

John watched him find a perplexed Geoff Noble, and grinned at the official. 'That went well,' he said cheerfully, and wandered off back the way he had come to the corner of the stand.

'That's right. The patient's name is Geoff Noble. He'll need urgent cardiac catheterisation,' Rose was telling someone on the phone as John approached.

'All done?' he asked her.

'Yep. The A & E consultant will fast track him to the cardiologists when he gets to resus,' Rose told him. John held his hand up and they high fived.

He turned to look over the pitch. 'Fancy staying to watch the match? Two-two draw against Aston Villa.'

'Not now you've told me the score,' Rose said, rolling her eyes. 'C'mon, let's go home and go to bed.'

John grinned at her. 'Ooh. Even better than watching the footie.' He grabbed her hand and ran to the TARDIS.


	2. It's No Picnic At Hanging Rock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torchwood gets a call from someone Rose remembers from the old universe, and a call from India. 
> 
> There is reference to events from the novel "Only Human" by Gareth Roberts  
> ISBN 0-563-48639-2
> 
> There is also a brief shout out to Big Finish Productions about the other universes Rose jumped into with the Dimension Cannon when trying to find the Doctor. (It’s only one sentence. See if you can spot it.)

**Chapter** **2**

**It's No Picnic At Hanging Rock**

**Torchwood Special Operations Unit.**

**Torchwood Tower, Canary Wharf.**

**Tuesday 27th October 2026.**

**07:55.**

Blue Watch Supervisor, Rose Smith took a sip of her tea as she looked out across South Colonnade towards Jubilee Park and Middle Dock. She could see the early morning commuters leaving the domed entrance of the underground station on the edge of the park. Behind her she could hear the Watch making their way from the kitchenette with their teas and coffees, ribbing each other with good natured jibes and friendly banter.

'What about the match last night?' Clive "Bart" Simpson asked his field partner.

'We were robbed,' Danny "John Boy" Walton protested. 'You could see on the slow motion replay that he took a dive.'

'Ah, but the referee's decision is final, and from his viewpoint it was a penalty.'

Rose smiled and turned away from the vista outside to look at her friends and colleagues. Amy "Legs" Williams was sitting on one of the couches with Angel "Wings" Coulthard next to her. Both agents were pregnant, and their friendship had grown closer because of it. Amy was nearly eight weeks pregnant now, with Angel three weeks behind her.

'Okay guys, settle down and get ready for another day of wonderful weirdness,' Rose called out, and the members of the Watch settled into their seats, sipped their drinks, and gave her their full attention.

'Item one. Despatch have had a call from one of our regulars . . .'

'Oh, who is it this time?' Jake "Peg" Simmonds asked. 'Weird Wendy, or Barmy Barry?'

'Nah. It'll be Psychic Simon,' Craig "Ace" Rimmer told them. 'Orrrr. Conspiracy Clive. We haven't heard from him in a while.'

'Okay. Okay,' Rose said, bringing them to order. 'Actually, it is Clive Finch and he reckons he's found a pattern in a number of seemingly unrelated deaths. Julia, I'd like you and Jake to pay him a visit and see what he thinks he's got.'

Rose remembered Clive from the "old" universe, and from other universes when she had used the dimension cannon. He was slightly odd, and a bit obsessive. Alice DiMaggio, her best friend and head of psychology, suspected that he was on the Asperger's spectrum. But Rose couldn't fault his eye for detail and his ability to bring unrelated threads of information together. Without the "other" him, she wouldn't be where she was now.

Craig chuckled as Jake groaned. 'Great. Another wild goose chase.'

'I know some of these people can be a nuisance, and some of them come over as a bit odd . . .' Rose said, playing devil's advocate.

'Odd?!' Jake interrupted. 'Fruit loops and nut jobs more like.'

Julia slapped his arm. 'Oi you, don't be so insensitive. Mental health issues are serious y'know.'

'Well said Van,' "Welsh" Pete Davies said. 'My old dad battled with depression for years . . . Most of it caused by this place in the bad old days.'

'As I was sayin',' Rose continued. 'Because they see the world differently to most people, they can spot things we don't.'

['Ooh, well said Wife. Champion of the underdog,'] her husband, Doctor John Smith thought in her head.

['Thank you. And I meant it.'] 'Moving on. Item two . . .'

Jake and Julia parked the black, Torchwood Range Rover outside a row of terraced houses in Victoria Street. It was a pleasant suburban street, with low brick walls separating the front gardens from the pavement. Many had small metal gates suspended between white capped brick columns. Julia opened the small gate and walked up the short path to knock on the white UPVC door.

A woman with frizzy auburn hair and a pleasant smile opened the door. 'Oh, hello. Has he been phoning you again?'

'Er, yes. I'm . . .' Julia started to reply.

'It's Julia, isn't it. And Jake there, coming up the path. He's in his shed in the garden. I expect you know the way,' Caroline, Clive's wife said.

'Aye,' Jake said following Julia into the hallway. 'Is it still through the kitchen?'

'That's right. Go on through.'

They went through the kitchen, out into the back garden, and entered the large shed at the far end. It was obvious that Clive spent a lot of time in his shed, as it even had a kitchen sink and a kettle. A bicycle was suspended above a wooden table, which was covered in books and papers. There were shelves and cupboards full of box files, a filing cabinet, and a computer on a desk under the window. The walls were covered with charts, photographs, and a star atlas.

Clive was a plump man in his sixties, with dark curly hair, an enthusiastic smile and eyes that tended to hold eye contact a bit too long. His movements were exaggerated and seemed slightly awkward and inept. The overall effect was that of someone who was socially awkward.

'Thank you for coming,' Clive said as he rummaged through his files.

'You told our Despatch Office that you had some information about some deaths,' Julia confirmed.

'Yes. It's all about connections and patterns hidden in the noise,' Clive replied, pulling out a sheaf of papers. 'Do you remember the reports of the Vauxhall Zafiras catching fire?'

Jake looked up from the papers on the table. 'Yeah. The air conditioning system overheated or something.'

'Mmm. That's what they said,' Clive agreed. 'Vauxhall recalled selected production batches and replaced the units. Weird thing is though, the R & D people couldn't find anything wrong with them.'

'Maybe they got the wrong batch,' Julia suggested.

'Or maybe someone deliberately put faulty units in the cars that caught fire,' Clive said in a quiet, conspiratorial tone.

'And why would they do that?' Jake asked sceptically.

'Tumble dryers,' Clive said out of the blue. 'Remember Beko tumble dryers catching fire?'

Jake frowned as he tried to keep up. 'What?'

'A family tragically died in their sleep as they dried their washing on cheap rate electricity overnight.'

'Oh, I remember that,' Julia said.

Clive rummaged through some newspaper cuttings in a box file. 'Did you see this though? A journalist interviewed the distraught relatives. The man's parents were beside themselves. Said they couldn't understand why they didn't hear the smoke detector.'

'Maybe the battery was flat,' Jake theorised.

'That's what the fire investigator said. Weird thing is though, he always pressed the test button on his parents detector when he took the family to visit them. Said you couldn't be too careful. His father said that he was bordering on obsessive.'

'So why would he not check his own detector?' Julia asked, starting to be drawn in to Clive's conspiracy theory.

'Why indeed? And while we're on detectors . . .' He found another newspaper story. 'Man and wife die from carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty central heating boiler . . . And guess what.'

'Don't tell me. Flat battery in the carbon monoxide detector,' Jake said.

'I don't have to tell you, you've got it spot on,' Clive said with a smile. 'See what I mean?'

'And you think all these are related?' Jake asked.

'And more,' Clive said. 'Twelve in all. Separately, they don't draw attention to themselves, but put them together . . .'

'And you have twelve people who don't know each other and have nothing in common,' Julia said as the voice of reason.

'Ever heard of Judge Peter Jeffries?' Clive asked.

'Judge Jeffries? Wasn't he somethin' to do with the bloody assizes?' Jake asked, as he remembered his history from school.

'That was George Jeffries,' Clive informed him. 'And I think Peter Jeffries might have been a descendent.'

Julia spotted the past tense. 'Might have been?'

'His yacht was found drifting into the shipping lanes of the Solent. When the RNLI went on board, it was like a modern day Mary Celeste,' Clive told them as though it was a ghost story.

'Hang on. What's that got to do with cars and tumble dryers catching on fire?' Jake enquired.

'What does a judge need twelve people for?'

Julia and Jake looked at each other and the penny dropped. 'A jury!'

'Exactly. Now I can't get access to court records, but I reckon you lot could,' Clive said, holding out the box file.

'What do you think?' Julia asked her partner.

'I don't suppose it would hurt to have a look,' Jake replied. 'I mean, he's done all the groundwork for us.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Rose was sitting in the supervisor's office, checking that the mission logs had all been completed and indexed, when her phone intercom buzzed.

'Hi "Welsh". What y'got for me?' she asked Pete Davies who was on despatch.

['The watch supervisor at Torchwood India in New Delhi is on video line one for you.']

'Okay. Can you put him through to the office please?'

['Will do. His name's Arjun by the way.']

'Thanks Pete.' Rose pressed the button on the phone, and the face of a distinguished looking Asian man in his early forties, appeared on the display screen. 'Arjun? Rose Smith, how can I help you?'

['Oh, hello Rose. I recognise you from the TV show. We get it on one of the satellite channels,'] he started. ['I think we need the services of your husband, Doctor Smith. There have been some mysterious disappearances in Australia, including two of our agents who went to investigate.']

'Oh my God Arjun. That's terrible. What are the details?' Rose asked with concern. As a supervisor herself, she knew how close the members of a watch were, and if two had gone missing, it would be like losing a brother or sister.

['We had a call from Elisa Neville, the Minister for Police in Victoria, who told us that the police had found a number of abandoned vehicles at a recreational reserve called Ngannelong or Hanging Rock. They traced the owners of the vehicles and found that some had been reported missing, and others were not at home and had not been seen for several days.']

'Hanging Rock . . ? Hanging Rock? Why do I know that name?' Rose asked herself.

' _Picnic at Hanging Rock_ ,' Camera Director Matt Jackson whispered to her as he filmed her for the Torchwood documentary. ' _It was a film_.'

'Picnic at Hanging Rock. That's it,' Rose agreed.

['I knew it as well, so I looked it up,'] Arjun told her. ['Picnic at Hanging Rock is a novel by Joan Lindsay, about some Victorian students from a girl's boarding school who mysteriously disappear on a Valentine's day picnic.']

'A novel? I thought it was a true story,' Rose confessed.

['It's a common misconception, but now it looks like it has become a true story.']

'Do you have any leads?' Rose asked.

['The police ran into a dead end, so they contacted us. We're the nearest Torchwood Institute to Australia. I sent Anil and Kiara on an airship to investigate. All was going fine, and then we suddenly lost all communication and telemetry from them. I declared a code red and activated the emergency transponders, but there is no signal coming back. I have sent a team as part of a rescue mission, and I have sent all the mission logs to your Despatch Office.']

'Okay. Thanks Arjun. I'll get John to review the logs. Is your team on site yet?'

['They're in transit as we speak. They should touch down in the next couple of hours.']

'I know your team will be eager to find their colleagues, but it might be an idea to keep them at a distance until John has had a chance to look at the data,' Rose suggested. The last thing either of them wanted was for more agents to go missing.

['We have the GPS location of their last known position, so I'll get them to start a search five kilometres out and work their way in.']

'Good idea. We'll be in touch as soon as we have somethin'.'

['Thank you Rose. Torchwood India out.']

Rose "tuned" in to her husband. ['John? Did you get that?']

'Yes I did,' he said as he walked into the office. He'd been alerted when he felt Rose's concern for a fellow supervisor. 'We'd better get over to the Hub and go through the data.'

The Communications Department looked like a television news studio, the sort that you see behind the presenters fronting the news. It had large media screens, multimedia mixing desks, and control consoles. The Comms Hub was a bank of keyboards, knobs, dials, multimedia sliders, buttons and switches, under a wall of media screens, satellite uplinks and downlinks. Incoming feeds were directed from this hub directly to the Despatch desk in Special Operations.

John took a seat and started operating the desk. 'Ah, that's a shame. No satellites over the area when they disappeared, so we can't have a peek.'

'Could they have been transmatted to a ship?' Rose asked.

'Let's have a look for their transponders further out,' John said. He wheeled his chair to another section, and accessed the satellites which were orbiting all of the planets in the solar system. He searched the megahertz frequencies that the transponders transmitted on, but found nothing. He went back to the original section and found the file Arjun had sent to them. It contained scan data of the surroundings at Hanging Rock.

'So, what have we got in here then?' John asked himself as he scrolled through the information. 'The geology is six million years old. Magma from an extinct volcano. Flora, Fauna, and . . . Oh, hello . . .'

'What have you found?' Rose asked.

'Irregular isotope decays, indicating a recent temporal distortion,' John explained.

'Time travel? What, like a vortex manipulator?' Rose wondered.

'Could be. Or some other sort of time travel device,' John replied. 'Remember Chantal Osterberg and her dirty rip engine?'

'How could I forget? Dressin' like Rachel Welch in "10,000 years B.C", marryin' a Neanderthal and havin' yer head removed is kinda hard to forget.'

They were referring to an adventure in the old universe, when the Doctor was all "northern" in a leather jacket. They'd encountered humans from the future who had travelled to prehistory to wipe out humans and replace them with genetically engineered beings called Hy-Bractor. Rose had married a tribal leader so that she could command them to leave the area to avoid being wiped out by the Hy-Bractor.

'Maybe there's somethin' on their comms that we can hear to give us a clue,' Rose suggested.

'Ooh. Good point. Let's have a listen.' John pressed play on the audio file. They could hear the usual "chatter" between the agents, and the occasional report back to the despatcher.

['Anil? These carbon fourteen readings are out of sync in this area,'] they heard the female agent, Kiara report.

['Have you seen this? Who the hell's left this here?'] they heard the male agent, Anil ask. ['Is it some sort of practical jo . . .'] Anil's comms and the telemetry from his scanner abruptly ceased.

['Seen what?'] they heard Kiara ask, and then there was a pause. ['Anil . . ? ANIL? Stop messing about. Where are y . . .'] Kiara's comms and telemetry also abruptly ceased.

'Hmmm. That's odd,' John thought out loud.

Rose was tuned into his thoughts. 'The temporal distortion was focussed. They were targeted individually.'

'Yes. And no sounds of any devices causing the effect,' John added.

'I wonder what it was they saw?' Rose asked.

'There's only one way to find out,' John said. 'I need to go and have a look.'

'John, no,' Rose said. 'It could be dangerous. Send a drone or somethin'.'

'But a drone might miss something Love. I need to be there to look, listen, feel, smell,' he argued.

'An' if you disappear? What about the kids?'

'It won't come to that. But I'll take a team with me if that makes you feel better.'

'Hmmm.' She wasn't happy about the idea of her husband blundering into a potentially dangerous situation, but if he had a bodyguard of trained agents to stop him doing something stupid, then that was better than nothing. After all, someone had to find those agents and the civilians that had gone missing, and the only person who stood a chance, was John.

'Okay. Call the TARDIS to the pad and I'll organise your support team,' Rose said as they moved from "Comms" to the Standby Room. 'Julia, Jake, Clive, Danny. I've got a job for you.'

John took his phone out of his pocket and selected the TARDIS app. The room was filled with the grinding, groaning brouhaha of the TARDIS engines. The remaining members of the Watch stood up and walked over.

'What you got for us Boss?' Danny "John Boy" Walton asked. 'I didn't see anything on the bulletin board.'

'No, you wouldn't. This one's a request from Torchwood India. They've had two agents go missing in Australia and have asked for help from our Science Lead,' Rose explained. 'Your job will be to keep him safe and bring him back in one piece.'

'Oi. I can take care of myself,' John said indignantly. 'I've been doing it for nine hundred years . . . Sort of.'

'Yes Love. And how many lives?' Rose asked.

John was about to respond, when he thought about his present situation. He only had one life, and it did change your outlook on life in general. 'Fair enough,' he conceded. 'But I'm in charge of the investigation.'

Rose kissed him on the lips. 'Fair enough.' She turned to the agents. 'John's in charge of the investigation. You're in charge of security.'

Jake grinned at her. 'Fair enough.'

'Is it Okay if I tag along?' camera director Will Hustler asked.

John grinned and looked at the team. 'Can you make that two to keep safe and bring back in one piece?'

Clive "Bart" Simpson looked between his colleagues. 'If Jake and Julia shadow the "Doc", and me and Danny shadow Will, I can't see why not.' They all nodded in agreement.

'Okay. Clive, if you act as mission leader, John will act as advisor,' Rose instructed. 'Will. Usual filming protocol. No footage of the TARDIS, and hang back until given the all clear by Clive or John.'

Will nodded. 'Understood.'

John clapped and rubbed his hands together. 'Right. That's all sorted then. Grab your gear and we can get going.'

Whilst the team went to their lockers to get all the equipment they would need, John went over to his wife and put his hands around her waist. She reached around his neck and they kissed.

['Stay safe, and stay in touch,'] she thought to him.

['Always,'] he thought back, also adding his feelings of love and his resolve to find all the missing people.

'Okay Doc. We're all kitted out and ready to roll,' Clive declared.

'Right then,' John said as he took out his TARDIS key. 'There's only one thing left to say.' He put the key in the lock. 'Allons-y'


	3. The Angel Of Oz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John leads a rescue mission to find some missing agents and runs into an old friend . . . or was that an enemy? He comes up with a novel solution for dealing with them.

**Chapter** **3**

**The Angel Of Oz**

Vrwoorp . . . Vrwoorp . . . Vrwiirp . . . Vrwiirp . . .

The TARDIS materialised in a clearing on the Summit Walk trail of Hanging Rock, and was surrounded by the odd shapes of eroded volcanic rock. John had locked onto the signals of agents from Torchwood India, and they were about 200 metres from the summit. It was just after eight in the evening in Victoria, and being Spring, the sun had set and it was twilight. The right hand door opened inwards, and the small band of explorers stepped out.

'Oh. That's an amazing view,' Julia said as she looked to the south through the clearing in the trees. They could see Mount Macedon in the distance.

'Yeah. You can see why it's a popular spot for walkers,' Clive said as he read information about the area on his tablet PC.

'DOCTOR SMITH?' a male voice with an Indian accent called out from below them. They turned to look down the trail to see four black uniformed agents hiking towards them.

'Arjun, our watch supervisor told us to expect you. Didn't think you'd get here ahead of us though. How did you manage it,' the lead agent asked.

'Oh. Just one of the tricks I've got up my sleeve,' John replied as he shook hands. 'That's Clive. He's leading the mission. Danny, Julia, and Jake . . . The chap with the camera on his shoulder is Will. He's filming for the TV programme.'

'Ah, yes. We get that on satellite,' the agent replied with a smile. 'I'm Ranbir, team leader. This is Jay, Carina, and Anushka.'

Ranbir was the same build as John, with an angular face, topped with a mess of jet black hair. Jay by contrast, was built like the proverbial brick outhouse. It was obvious from the rippling muscles under his uniform that he liked to work out. He sported a goatee beard and a shaved head. Carina was an Asian beauty, with high cheekbones, a gorgeous smile, and black hair in a "pageboy" cut which framed her face and enhanced her beauty. Anushka was also an attractive young woman, with rounder facial features and shoulder length black hair tied back in a ponytail.

After they had all shook hands, John got straight to the point. 'Did you find anything on the way up?'

'No. It's all been normal so far, but Anil and Kiara disappeared further up the trail towards the summit,' Ranbir reported.

John squinted and looked up at the dimming sky. 'We've only got about an hour of light left. We'd better get a move on.'

All the agents had their scanners searching the terrain around them as they moved up the trail. Clive was on point, with his right hand on the grip of his SA80 assault. John was behind him, scanning with his sonic screwdriver, and the rest were spread out covering their flanks and the rear.

They walked up a mixture of steps made from gravel, held in place with wooden frames, and stone slabs, arranged into large, wide steps. Before long, they made it to the summit, where the GPS indicated that this was the last known location of the missing agents.

There were more, odd shaped boulders and rock formations. Some of them had cavities eroded into them and looked like helmets of giant Trojan soldiers.

'Whoo! I'm getting a shed load of chroniton particles and residual temporal energy around here,' John announced.

'In English Doc,' Jake said with a cheeky smile.

'This is where Anil and Kiara time travelled.'

'Time travelled? But how?' Carina asked. Working for Torchwood, she wasn't fazed by the idea that travelling through time could be a practical proposition.

'Oh, there are plenty of ways of doing it,' John replied. 'We've just got to work out which one and why.'

Jake sat on a boulder and scanned the rock formations around him. 'I can't detect any hidden technology. There's nothing in the rock cavities. We must be right on top of it, but it's either something our scanners can't detect, or it's gone with the two agents.'

Jake's words struck a chord with John. He turned towards Jake and adjusted the setting on his sonic screwdriver. 'We're on top of it, you say . . . And our scanners can't detect it,' he said out loud.

He looked at the boulder Jake was sitting on. It wasn't as dark as the larger rock formations, and it didn't have lichen on it. When he looked closer, he could see lines in the boulder, which looked like someone had scored grooves into it, as if starting a sculpture. He scanned the boulder and looked at the results on the holographic display projected above the blue tip of the screwdriver.

'Hmmm. That's interesting.'

'What is?' Julia asked, coming to stand beside him.

'That boulder. It's made of granite.'

'So?'

'Hanging Rock is a volcanic mamelon made up of soda trachyte.'

'So it doesn't match the geology,' Julia reasoned. 'So how did it get here?'

John had a worried expression on his face. 'I think I know . . . JAKE. We're not on top of it . . . you are.'

Jake looked over at him with a frown. 'Eh?'

'EVERYONE! I want you all to look at the boulder Jake is sitting on,' John ordered.

They all turned to look at John. 'NOT ME! THE BOULDER!' he snapped. They heard the urgency in his voice and all quickly focussed their attention on the boulder.

'Jake. I want you to look down at the boulder, and without taking your eyes off it, back up towards me,' John instructed.

Jake had known John long enough to know that when he spoke like this, your life usually depended on it. He looked at the boulder as he swung his leg over it and backed towards John.

'Why are we all staring at a rock, Doc?' Jake asked as he felt John grab his shoulders.

'Look carefully. Can you make out the shape of a large bird's wing?'

'Oh yeah. I see it,' Anushka said. From where she was standing it was easier to see the profile.

'And I bet you can see something that looks like a person crouching down on one knee,' John said.

'I can see that,' Jay announced. 'What is it? Has someone started a sculpture?'

'That's no sculpture,' John said menacingly. 'It's a quantum locked life form. When it's seen, it turns to stone, but when you stop looking at it, it moves faster than a blink of the eye.'

'What kind of threat level are we looking at here, Doc?' Clive asked, levelling his assault rifle on the boulder.

'In our present situation, fairly low,' John told them. 'But soon it's going to get dark. And then . . .'

'We won't be able to see it,' Ranbir realised. 'What do we do?'

'We get out of here while we still can,' John told him. 'Clive. You can put your guns away, they won't harm it. We need to pair up so we can have eyes forward on the trail, and eyes behind on the Angel.'

'Angel?' Clive asked.

'Weeping Angel. It's called a Weeping Angel. Also known as a Lonely Assassin,' John replied.

Clive moved over to his field partner Danny without taking his eyes off the crouching Angel. 'Right everyone. Pair up. Stand side by side facing in opposite directions. Arms around each other's waist . . . Jake, you're guiding the Doc. Julia, you're guiding Will.'

The agents carefully paired up and grabbed each other around their waists.

'Right. Those of us looking down the trail are going to literally drag their partner along with them so they don't stumble or fall over the edge,' Clive instructed. 'Everyone ready?'

They all replied in the positive, and Clive started to lead the group back the way they had come. 'So how does this thing attack then, Doc?'

'They're the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely. No mess, no fuss, they just zap you into the past and let you live to death. The rest of your life used up and blown away in the blink of an eye. You die in the past, and in the present they consume the energy of all the days you might have had. All your stolen moments. They're creatures of the abstract. They live off potential energy,' John said with a frown. That speech sounded familiar.

'So everyone who's gone missing is still alive?' Carina asked, Hoping she would be able to see her best friend Kiara again.

'It depends how much energy the Angel has, and how far in the past it's sent them,' John explained. 'They could've been dead and buried years ago, or drawing their pensions.'

Carina gave a gasp of despair. 'Oh, poor Kiara.'

Julia let out a squeal as she saw a statue of an angel appear on the trail behind them, it's arms reaching towards them and it's mouth open in a silent scream. It had appeared as the team moved around an outcrop of rock.

'We should be coming up on the TARDIS any time now,' John said, trying to remember how many turns they'd made on the way up.

Ranbir and Carina were ahead of the group, leading the way. 'There is a blue, wooden box up ahead, with the words "police" written on it,' Ranbir informed them.

'That's it!' John exclaimed. 'Head for the blue box.'

The team shuffled across the clearing and huddled around the TARDIS doors. 'Keep looking for it,' John told them as he reached his key out of his pocket. 'It could have gone over the top of the rocks and try to creep up on us from behind.'

He opened the door and pushed it inwards. 'Inside. Quick, quick.' He called off each name as they filed inside. 'Julia, Carina, Anushka, lovely name by the way. Will, Jay, Ranbir, Jake, Danny.'

There was just him and Clive left, scanning the clearing with their eyes. 'Come on Clive. We'll back in together, yeah?'

'On three,' Clive said. 'One . . . Two . . . THREE.'

They stepped backwards together, squeezing through the doors, and fell backwards as the Angel was suddenly standing outside the doorway with its arms up above its head with clawed fingers apparently ready to drop down and grab them. Fanged teeth bared as though ready to bite.

'Oh that is beautiful,' John said, standing up and scrutinising the face of the Angel. 'I've not seen one this close up before. Mind you,' he said scratching the back of his head. 'One of them saw me this close once.' He slammed the door shut without warning, leaving the threat outside.

'Where the hell are we,' Ranbir asked. 'What is this place?'

'Was that box a transmat booth?' Carina asked.

John turned to see the Indian agents looking around the vaulted interior. 'Actually, that's not bad . . . But wrong. This is the inside of the TARDIS, and we're inside the blue box.'

'Inside the blue box?' Jay asked. 'But that would make it . . .'

'Bigger on the inside,' John, Julia, Jake, Clive, Danny, and Will all said together with big grins on their faces.

Clive turned to John. 'So Doc. Explain. What the hell is a Weeping Angel?'

'Like I said, they are quantum-locked. They don't exist when they're being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature, they freeze into rock. No choice. It's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone. Of course, a stone can't kill you either. But then you turn your head away, then you blink, and oh yes it can. Their greatest asset is their greatest curse. They can never be seen. The loneliest creatures in the universe.'

'Where did it come from?' Jake asked.

'No one really knows, but they're as old as the universe, or very nearly.'

'And how do we defeat it,' Julia asked.

'Well, this one time, I tricked a bunch of them into facing each other and they became quantum locked for an eternity,' John told them.

'And when there's one of them?' Clive asked.

'No idea.'

'I'm so glad we've got you here,' Jake said with a smirk.

John grinned at the humour. 'You will be when I've come up with an idea.'

'Could we break it up with a pneumatic drill?' Danny asked.

'What about dynamite?' Jay added.

John looked horrified. 'Wow, wow, whoa. We're not trying to kill it!'

'Why not? It's trying to kill us,' Ranbir reminded him.

'Do you kill a cat for killing and eating a mouse . . ? Or a dog for killing a rat? It's only doing what it has to do to survive,' John explained. 'Everything acts according to its nature.'

'So how do we stop it trying to kill us?' Anushka asked. 'Can we communicate with it?'

John looked at her in amazement. 'Ooh, good question. I like you.' He moved over to the console monitor and tapped a few buttons. 'I wonder if the TARDIS translation matrix could interface with it? If I integrate the matrix with the public address system . . . and link it through to the comms panel . . . I should be able to do this.'

John flicked a switch and looked up to the ceiling. 'Hello Weeping Angel. I'm the Doctor. Fancy a chat?'

Everyone was looking up to the domed ceiling, waiting for a reply. They presumed that the speakers were up there somewhere.

'Come on,' John moaned. 'Surely we can come to some agreement. I can help you . . .'

[' **I'm hungry**!'] a gravelly voice said from the ceiling.

'Ooh, hello. I think we've made contact,' John said, looking back to the console.

[' **So much food! Let me in. I will feast.** ']

'He wants to zap us all into the past,' Carina protested.

'No, I don't think so,' John said. 'It's the TARDIS it wants. There's a world of time energy in here it could feast on forever, but the damage it could do could switch off the sun.'

'We're back to the dynamite then,' Jake reasoned.

'Will you stop it with the dynamite already,' John said with a roll of his eyes. 'Look, Weeping Angel. I've got a bunch of people here who want to blow you to smithereens. I'm trying to save you. Work with me here.'

[' **Let me in. I will eat my fill, and then I will leave.** ']

['John?'] Rose called in his thoughts.

['Are you up to speed with what's happening?']

['Yeah. And I was remembering when I was in the Donna alternative universe. We made a time machine out of a circle of mirrors.']

['Mirrors?']

['What if the Weeping Angel was looking at its own reflection?']

'Its own reflection,' John said out loud in realisation.

'Eh?' the Torchwood agents queried.

['You my wife, are as brilliant as ever. Love you.']

['Course you do. There's a full length mirror in the bedroom.']

['I know.']

['Be careful. It might be more than seven years of bad luck if it all goes pear shaped.']

['Oh I'll be careful. See you later.'] John turned back to the console. 'Weeping Angel. Are you outside the doors?'

'Doc! You're not seriously considering letting that thing in here?' Clive asked. 'Rose told me to stop you doing something stupid.'

[' **I am waiting outside the doors.** ']

'Don't worry. It was Rose's idea. Come on you can give me a hand with something.'

A few minutes later, John and Clive were wheeling an ornate, full length mirror on a tilting stand, into the Console Room and in front of the doors. John turned to the rest of the agents. 'Right you lot. Through the doorway, down the corridor, second door on the right. Help yourselves to a cup of tea.'

They started to make their way out of the Console Room. 'How big is this place?' Ranbir asked as he went through the doorway.

John turned to Clive. 'You too Clive.'

'But Doc . . .'

'I'll be fine. When I open the door, the Angel will be frozen by its own image and the threat is neutralized,' John told him. 'And if anything should go wrong, I've got my TARDIS app to bring it back to me,' he added, with his fingers crossed behind his back.

'Okay. If you're sure?'

'Certain. Trust me.'

Clive went through the doorway, and John turned back to the door. ['Here we go then. Wish me luck,'] he thought to Rose.

['Luck? Why do y'need luck? It is goin' to work in't it?']

['Yeah. Of course.']

['John?']

He positioned the mirror in front of the door, stood to one side and pulled it open . . . Nothing happened. He cautiously peeped around the door and grinned. 'Gotcha!' There was a weeping Angel standing in a relaxed stance outside the door, illuminated by the soft glow of the TARDIS interior, and waiting for it to open. It would be waiting for a very long time.

He carefully edged the mirror forwards until it was just outside the door, standing on the ground. He then opened the other door, and carefully walked around the back of the Angel. He rummaged in one of his bigger-on-the-inside pockets and took out an emergency glow stick on a lanyard. He broke the seal, shook the tube, and put the lanyard around its neck. He looked in the mirror and saw the eerie green glow illuminating the Angel's face.

He stepped back inside the TARDIS and slowly closed the doors. 'I'll see to you later.'

['It worked then?'] Rose asked.

['Did you doubt me Misses Smith?']

['Er, no. Of course not.']

['Good. Now, have you got the names and details of all the missing people?']

['Yeah. Uploading them to the TARDIS now.']

['Thanks Love. See you soon.'] John released the time rotor handbrake and activated the inertial dampers. He moved around the console and engaged the harmonic generator, before releasing the locking down mechanism. He moved to another section and pulled up the engine release lever with his usual flourish. Finally, he activated the materialise/dematerialise function, and gradually increased the space-time throttle, which started the Time Rotor grinding up and down.


	4. The Rescuers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John takes the team on a little trip into the past and finds an unusual and kind solution to a problem. 
> 
> When I started writing this chapter, I realised that society in the early twentieth century was not as liberal in its ideas about equality as it is today. I have tried to deal with the matter as tactfully as I can and hope no one takes offence.

**Chapter** **4**

**The Rescuers**

At the sound of the TARDIS engines starting up, Clive hurried into the Console Room, followed by the rest of the team. 'Doc. Is everything Okay?'

'What's that noise,' Carina asked in wonder. 'And what's that column going up and down?'

John grinned at her. 'That's the engine. We're in flight and WE are on a rescue mission.'

'You mean we're going to get Anil and Kiara,' Anushka said excitedly.

'You bet!' John said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

'What about the Weeping Angel?' Julia asked.

'No. He's not coming,' John replied cheekily, and saw the withering look from Julia. 'It's back at Hanging Rock, admiring itself in the mirror. I'll sort out a permanent solution later.'

Danny frowned. 'But it's gonna be dark back there. It won't be able to see itself.'

'Oh ye of little faith,' John quoted. 'I put an emergency glow stick around its neck. It'll be there 'til dawn, and it won't be able to drain it like it could the batteries of a torch.'

'And how will you find our friends?' Ranbir asked, bringing them back to the topic of the rescue.

John gestured for him to join him at the monitor and put an arm around his shoulders. 'See those two green blips there?'

'Yes.'

'Those are your friend's emergency transceivers. Let's see. April twenty seventh, nineteen ten. Ooh, they'll be able to see Halley's Comet.'

'Nineteen ten? You mean we're travelling through time?' Ranbir asked.

John gave him a dribbled down his uniform look. 'Well, yeah. How else are we going to rescue them?'

'It's a time machine!' Jay realised. 'We're actually in a time machine. Hah!'

The TARDIS materialised in front of a large, polished slab of stone with the words "Hanging Rock" engraved on it. It was just off the main South Rock Road, at the junction with Racecourse Road. The Torchwood agents followed John out of the TARDIS and looked around. Racecourse Road stretched into the distance bordered on each side by a row of trees. They could just make out two figures, dressed in black, walking towards them.

'KIARA! ANIL!' the Indian agents called out with undisguised joy. They started to run up the road, as the two agents ran to greet them. There were hugs and laughter as they met, with a barrage of questions following the greetings.

'Nineteen ten?' Anil asked when told where he was. 'You mean the year nineteen ten?'

'No. It's the number of the highway there,' John said sarcastically as the group approached the TARDIS. 'Of course it's the year.'

'But how?' Kiara asked.

'Ah. That one's a bit more complicated. I'll let your friends explain that one,' John told them. 'You've got a lot to catch up on.'

'It's Doctor Smith isn't it?' Anil asked. 'I've seen you on the television.

'Yep. That's me. Now, everyone back inside the TARDIS, we've got to locate the missing civilians and rescue them.'

They all filed back inside the blue wooden box, where Anil and Kiara froze in the doorway with their mouths open. They ran outside and looked around the small box, before slowly walking back in.

'What the hell is this?' Anil asked in wonder.

'This, my friend, is called the TARDIS,' John informed them as he went to the monitor. 'Now let's see where everyone is.'

'How are you going to find them, Doc?' Jake asked as he joined him at the monitor.

''Well, according to the information we have from the Victoria Police, there are eleven people reported missing. Thankfully, they all have something that no self respecting person in the twenty first century would be without,' John said with a grin.

'What's that?' Clive asked as they all huddled around the monitor.

'I'd have thought it was obvious. What's everybody going to do when they get to the top of Hanging Rock?'

'Oh I get it,' Julia said. 'They're going to take a selfie.'

John clapped his hands together and pointed at Julia. 'Give the girl a prize. Thanks to modern, portable telecommunications, everyone of the missing people is carrying a mobile phone. The TARDIS will be able to detect the carrier waves as the phones try to link to a mast, just as it was able to locate Anil and Kiara's transponders.'

Anil frowned. 'But the first people went missing a fortnight ago. Won't the batteries be flat by now?'

John gave him an appreciative look. 'Oh, I like you. You're right, the batteries will be flat. But the TARDIS doesn't just search in the here and now. It also searches in the there and when.' He adjusted some switches on the console. 'And there we are, eleven signals grouped into time periods over the space of a week.'

'And where are they?' Ranbir asked.

'It looks like they all had the sense to head for the nearest sign of civilization. A charming little place called Woodend,' John told them.

He set the coordinates and started the Time Rotor. After a few seconds, the TARDIS clumped to earth in Woodend, a few days previously. 'So, there are three people in this timeline. Let's see if they want a lift home.'

John made his way towards the doors, and the Torchwood agents started to follow. He turned around to face them. 'Where do you think you're going?'

'To rescue the missing civilians,' Clive told him. 'I'm in charge of security . . . Remember?'

'You go out dressed like that and you'll cause a panic and all sorts of unwanted attention,' John warned them. 'Don't forget, we've already got eleven people out there dressed inappropriately in twenty first century clothing. If there are women out there wearing shorts and tee shirts, they'll probably be arrested for indecent exposure!'

'I can't let you go out there on your own, Doc,' Clive told him with authority.

John gave him a withering look. 'Oh, alright. Follow me.'

He led them out of the Console Room and down the passageway, taking the second passageway on the right, and then third on the left. He led them straight ahead and under some stairs. They were all starting to wonder just how big this ship was. They went past some high tech looking bins, and John stopped at the fifth door on the left.

John opened the door and held his arm out for them to go inside. The group were confronted by a spherical room, the upper hemisphere looking like the console room, complete with floor decking and white marble coral struts with cornice mouldings. However, instead of a time rotor in the centre, there was an ornate spiral staircase which led down to an inverted hemisphere. Around the left hand wall and curving around to the front, were rows and rows of clothing on four levels. They could see the same on the floor below.

'Oh wow Doc,' Jake said in awe. You never said anything about all this.'

'Welllll. It never came up before. Now over here is the early nineteen hundreds,' he said, leading them to a section of clothes. 'Ladies clothes are on the lower deck, and changing rooms are over there.'

As the women went to the spiral staircase, and the men started sorting through various suits, Will Hustler called for John's attention. He'd been feeling like a bit of a spare part, as he hadn't really been able to film anything of this mission.

'John? Can I highlight a potential problem,' he said cautiously. It was a bit of a delicate problem and he didn't want to offend anyone. During his career as a cameraman, he'd covered many social disturbances in inner cities, where racial tensions had come to a head and turned to violence.

'Oh, Will. Yes, of course. What can I do for you?' John asked.

'Well. It's the Indian agents . . .'

'Yes? What about them?'

'Er . . . They've got dark skin,' Will said hesitantly.

'Yes, I know. They're Indian,' John replied as though it was obvious.

'And outside of the TARDIS doors, is early twentieth century Australia . . . You know, with indigenous, Aboriginal people . . . People who are treated as second, or even third class citizens.'

John looked at him with a startled expression. 'Oh!'

'Yes. "Oh",' Will echoed.

John turned and clapped his hands. 'Okay everyone, listen up.. Will has just brought something to my attention. All the New Dehli agents will have to stay in the TARDIS.'

'What for?' Ranbir asked, admiring a rather smart three piece suit.

'Because outside, are a bunch of late Victorian bigots,' John said with a degree of sadness in his voice. 'Let's just leave it at that. This is a stealth mission, and we don't want to attract attention to ourselves.'

Ranbir and his colleagues nodded. 'Prejudices. They were rife in the early twentieth century.'

'Sorry,' John said. 'If you wait in the Console Room, we'll go and bring the missing people back.'

Clive, Danny, and Jake dressed in suits similar to John's. Clive topped his off with a Trilby hat, Danny and Jake wore flat caps, and John grabbed himself a white Fedora, and put it on at a jaunty angle.

They heard the "clop" of ankle high boots on the spiral staircase, as Julia came up from below.

Jake gave his field partner an appreciative wolf whistle. 'Oh, look at you!'

'Why thank you, kind sir,' she said with a demure smile.

She was wearing a plain, ankle length, white dress which was gathered in at the waist with a black belt. It was buttoned up to the neck, and she wore a wide brimmed hat which had a floral arrangement around the brim. She had a cloth bag over her shoulder which held her scanner and stun gun.

John raised his eyebrows. 'It looks like we're all ready to go then. Allons-y'

The TARDIS had landed next to a tall, white rendered clock tower, which stood three storeys high. There were three steps which led to a blue door at the front. On the second storey, there were four small balconies, accessed again by small, blue doors which were under each clock face.

The Torchwood team looked around the brightly lit High Street, where it joined with Anslow street. The buildings were all of the typical high status, colonial style, as Woodend was meant for wealthy people eager to escape the summer heat of Melbourne for the cooler atmosphere of a town. There were a number of horse drawn carriages rattling by, and they could see plumes of steam in the distance, and hear the "chuffing" of a steam train as it left the station further down the High Street.

'This is fantastic!' Danny exclaimed. 'Think about it. Nineteen ten . . . A hundred and sixteen years ago.'

'I know,' Julia said. 'I can hardly believe it.' She turned to John. 'You and Rose must have so much fun doing this.'

John gave her his open mouthed smile. 'Yeah. It never gets old.' He reached inside his jacket pocket, took out his sonic screwdriver, and started surreptitiously scanning for mobile phone signals. 'They should only have landed in the last couple of hours . . . Where would they go?'

'Well, they would think they were still in twenty twenty six. The horse and carriages must have been a bit puzzling though,' Clive theorised.

'Could be a town pageant. Celebrating the history of the town,' Jake suggested. 'If it was me, I'd try and find a police officer to report to.'

Danny was shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked down the street. 'Hey Doc. It looks like there's a bit of commotion down the street.'

They all turned to look. 'I think we may have found them. Allons-y,' John said, and hurried off towards the disturbance.

'I've never seen the like,' declared a prim and proper woman, who was dressed in a similar style to Julia. 'All that flesh on display.'

'Yeah. I know,' a lecherous teenager in flannel shorts and blazer said. He got a swift clip around the ear from the woman.

'Home. Now!' she told him, and dragged him away by his ear.

'Owww.'

As the team approached, they could see a man in a dark suit, wearing a bow-tie and straw boater, addressing a young man and woman, who were obviously confused at the crowd's reaction. The man was wearing knee length shorts, white polo shirt, baseball cap, and hiking boots. The woman was wearing tight denim shorts, which showed her long, shapely legs. She wore a lumberjack shirt, with the ends tied in a loose knot at her navel, a baseball cap and hiking boots.

'Have we spoilt your historical parade or something?' the man asked. 'Sorry, but we didn't mean to. We don't even know how we got here. We were up on Hanging Rock.'

'Told you,' Jake said with a grin.

'A parade? Who are you people?' the man in the straw boater asked. 'And why is this woman half naked?' He was giving her a good look up and down.

John pushed through the crowd with the team following him. 'Ah. Here you are. You had us all worried when you ran off like that.'

'Wha?' the man said.

'And who might you be?' straw boater man asked.

John took out his psychic paper and showed it around the crowd at arms length. 'Doctor John Smith, senior lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. These feeble minded people are part of an experiment to develop a new treatment for delusional psychosis. Harmless really . . . Unless they panic of course.'

John looked at straw boater man. 'You haven't been harassing them have you?'

This flustered the man. 'Er, no. no, of course not. We were trying to help them . . . weren't we?' he said to the crowd.

'Yeah. Help them,' the crowd agreed.

John slapped him on the shoulder. 'Good man. Right. We've got a carriage waiting by the clock tower. Probably best if you all wait here,' he told the crowd. 'Wouldn't want to panic them would we?'

'No. No,' the crowd agreed.

The Torchwood agents formed a defensive perimeter around the young couple.

'Ah, Forgot to mention,' John said, pulling on his earlobe. 'There may be some more people appearing over the week, all dressed in a similar fashion and acting confused. We'll be here to collect them when they get lost, but if you could just show them some kindness until we arrive, it would be much appreciated.'

'Kindness. Yes of course,' straw boater man said, which was echoed by the crowd. The young men in the crowd couldn't wait to see more of the women. In more ways than one.

'What's going on?' the young woman asked nervously as they were led up the street towards the TARDIS. 'Are we in trouble?'

'Not any more,' John said with a smile. 'We're Torchwood, and you were abducted by an alien.' He looked around at his team. 'All things considered, I think that went rather well.'

Clive laughed and shook his head. 'Howd'ya do that Doc? Talk your way out of a situation like that?'

'Oh, just go in as though you own the place, baffle them with science. Piece of cake,' John told him.

['It helps if you have a runaway gob as well,'] Rose thought in his head.

['Oh, hello. You've been following the action then?']

['Course I have. And may I say husband, nicely done.']

['Thank you wife. Only another six to go.']

['Go get 'em tiger . . . Grrrr.']

John jumped the TARDIS ahead to the next day, and whilst the team went out to find the next missing people, the agents from Torchwood Four looked after the civilians and tried to explain what had happened to them.

Down the street, John found straw boater man and a small crowd of young men waiting for them. 'Ah, there you are Doctor Smith. We've done as you requested and tried to act as though their preposterous and ridiculous ramblings were normal.'

This time there was a man and woman in their fifties, and a young woman in her twenties. Once again the young woman was wearing shorts which revealed a lot of leg, along with a tee shirt, and a bush hat.

'Do you know what's going on?' the man asked John.

John gave him a big smile. 'Yes . . . Yes I do. If you come with us we'll explain everything and get you home.'

The older woman reached out and grabbed John's hand. 'Oh thank you. Thank you. These people are mad.'

John looked at straw boater man and gave him an exaggerated wink. 'Yes, they are, aren't they.'

Straw boater man nodded conspiratorially. He knew who the mad people were.

With the help of straw boater man, and the group of young men who were eager to see more of the mad, young women, John was able to jump from day to day and gather up the lost hikers in a matter of hours. He took the TARDIS back to the polished stone slab of Hanging Rock, where they had picked up Anil and Kiara.

It was early morning on the day after the agents had disappeared.

'Okay everyone,' John said, getting the attention of the hikers. 'Now we are back at Hanging Rock, and I need to have a private word with each of you outside before you go home. It's just part of the Torchwood protocol.'

He selected the oldest man of the group and guided him outside, closing the door behind him. 'Now, I think that my colleagues explained what happened to you, didn't they?'

The man nodded. 'Yes. It all seems so far fetched, but I can't think of any other explanation which would fit.'

'I know. It's all a bit weird, and after these events, some people sustain some odd injuries and marks. I just need to check your temples,' John explained.

'Yes, of course. You're the expert,' the man agreed.

John put two fingers on each of his temples, and the man fainted. John caught him easily under his arms, and dragged him around the side of the TARDIS to lay him carefully on the ground. The man would wake up with no idea how he got there from the top of Hanging Rock. John popped his head around the door and shouted, 'next?'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Vrwoorp . . . Vrwoorp . . . Vrwiirp . . . Vrwiirp . . .

Both doors of the TARDIS opened onto a dark, barren scrubland. John slowly backed out, dragging the Weeping Angel onto the rough ground, whilst Rose edged the mirror to the door.

Rose looked around when she stepped out. 'So this is where you came with Martha and Jack then? Malcassairo in the year one hundred trillion?'

'That's it. Right at the end of the universe. All the galaxies have collapsed into their black holes. All the stars have used up their hydrogen.'

'That's SO sad,' Rose said, feeling melancholy.

John looked up at the dark, starless sky. 'Yeah, but it's had a good innings. And anywhere else, I'd worry about what we're doing here. All sorts of nasty paradoxes waiting to happen.'

'But here, it's a perfect solution,' Rose said.

'A self perpetuating solution,' John said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Rose laughed. 'Come on then let's get the ball rollin'.'

They stepped back inside the TARDIS and closed the left hand door. They had one final look at the Weeping Angel with the glow stick around its neck, and quickly shut the door. The Weeping Angel moved faster than the eye could see, but the TARDIS was impenetrable. It slowly faded away, allowing a view of a group of Futurekind humans who were approaching. Before long, a number of Futurekind were in their past, producing another generation to march towards the end of the universe, but never quite making it.

The last sound in the universe, would be the contented belch of a Weeping Angel.


	5. Non-Total Recall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna gets invited to a posh do, and Jackie finds out about the Doctor’s past.

**Chapter 5**

**Non-Total Recall**

The Templeton's Land Rover Discovery turned off Queenswood Road in Highgate, and pulled up at the wrought iron gates. Shaun opened the window and pressed the intercom on the white pillar which supported one of the gates. After giving his and Donna's name, the gates opened and he drove along the curving gravel driveway towards the white mansion. A hundred yards beyond the mansion, they could make out the edge of Queen's Wood on top of a grassy bank. Lights from the Gamekeeper's Cottage could be seen glowing in the darkness. There were a number of expensive looking cars parked half on the gravel and half on the manicured lawn. Shaun pulled up and parked behind a Bentley.

'Oh God. This is posh,' Donna said as they climbed out of the car.

'Yeah, but it's Jackie Tyler. And you said she was really down to earth,' Shaun reassured her.

'Yeah, I know. But that was the other me who knew her. What if we don't get on?'

Shaun actually laughed. 'How could she not get on with you? You're the same person she knew before. Some slightly different memories maybe, but still the same person.'

'Yeah. I suppose.'

Shaun, in a skeleton costume, and Donna, in a mummy costume, walked up to the Doric columns which supported a narrow overhang over the front door. They climbed the few shallow steps, and the front door was opened by Count Dracula.

'Good eev-en-ing Mister and Misses Templeton,' Dracula said, in an attempted Transylvanian accent.

'You have got to be Alistair,' Donna said with a lopsided smile. 'Rose warned me about you.'

'Warned you? That makes it sound like I'm dangerous. I shall have to have words with Misses Smith,' Alistair replied with a smile. 'Please, come in. I'll take you through to the Drawing Room and announce you.'

'Announce us? Do you have to? I'd prefer to just sneak in unnoticed and mingle,' Donna told him.

'Oh I'm afraid it's etiquette Misses Templeton.' Shaun was stifling a chuckle as Donna's face fell. Alistair leaned forward and whispered in her ear. ' _When Rose warned you about me, did she also say you could trust me?_ '

Donna frowned at him uncertainly. 'Yeah. She did actually.'

' _Good. Then trust me. You are going to have a ball._ '

Alistair led the way into the Drawing Room, where people in various Halloween costumes were milling about. He went over to a zombie and Vampira and cleared his throat. 'She's here Misses Tyler.' He turned around, gave Donna a cheeky wink and walked away.

Vampira turned around and her eyes went wide. 'Oh my Gawd. It's Donna.' She turned to the zombie. 'Pete. It's her. Donna. The one who saved us all from them Dalek things.'

'Jackie?' Donna asked.

'Oh, you know me. That's brilliant. Come here,' Jackie said and pulled her into a hug. 'When Rose and John told me Jack had found you I couldn't believe it.'

Donna laughed. 'I was so worried about comin' tonight. I wasn't sure you'd know it was me . . . If yer know what I mean.'

'Know what yer mean? You wouldn't believe how I know what yer mean,' Jackie said with a laugh. She turned to Pete and linked her arm with his. 'This is me husband Pete . . . If yer know what I mean.' Both women laughed at the shared joke.

Pete shook her hand. 'Nice to meet you Donna. John and Rose talk about you all the time . . . If you know what I mean,' he said with his roguish smile.

'Oh, and this is my husband Shaun,' Donna said.

'Nice to meet you Mister Tyler. Misses Tyler,' Shaun said as he shook Pete's hand and kissed Jackie's cheek.

'Ah ah. It's Pete and Jackie. Okay?' Pete said.

'Got it,' Shaun said. 'And thanks for inviting us. John tells us your parties are legendary Jackie.'

'Oh, once I'd heard they'd found ya, there was no way I was gonna leave yer off the guest list,' Jackie told them.

'Well. If it isn't Shaun and Donna Templeton,' An American voice said behind them.

Donna had a big grin on her face as she turned around. 'Captain Jack!'

Jack was holding his arms out, and Donna did the same. 'Come her yer hunk,' she said and they grabbed each other in a rocking hug. 'Hey, you do know that other me had a crush on ya?'

'Aaaand may I introduce my partner Rex,' Jack said as he came out of the hug and indicated a werewolf by his side.

Rex shook hands with Donna and Shaun. 'Pleased to meet you. Jack's told me a lot about you.'

Donna linked arms with Rex. 'He's told me bugger all about you, so let's get acquainted and you can dish the dirt on Jack.'

'Help yerselves to food and drinks in the Dining Room,' Jackie told them as Donna started gossiping with Rex.

Jack grinned as he shook his head and turned to Shaun. 'Good to see you again Shaun. How's the village?'

'Recovering,' Shaun told him as they shook hands.

'Fancy a drink? They've got a bar in the dining room.'

'Lead on,' Shaun replied.

At the door to the dining room, they bumped into an attractive, blonde witch. 'Shaun. You found it alright then,' Rose said as she had a hug and a kiss.

'Yeah. No problems thanks.'

Rose looked around. 'Did Donna come with you? I know she was nervous about comin'.'

Jack snorted a laugh. 'She's kidnapped Rex to get all the dirt on me.'

'I hope she's got a big dustbin then,' Rose said with her tongue between her teeth smile.

'Rose!' Donna called as she let Rex lead her to the bar.

'Hiya,' Rose said as she gave her a hug. 'I was just sayin' to Shaun that I was glad you came.'

'Jackie would have been really upset if you hadn't come,' John said from behind Rose as he handed his wife a glass of wine. 'Prepare for a serious gossip session later,' he warned her with a grin and a kiss on the cheek.

Over the course of the evening, Shaun and Donna were introduced to various politicians, business CEO's, and celebrities. Donna could not believe where she was and who she was meeting. Shaun was asked for his business card by the CEO of a construction company who was looking for a reliable architect. He comically slapped his skin tight skeleton costume, but went to the car to get one out of the glovebox.

Donna was at the buffet in the Dining Room, and there was the usual assortment of Halloween themed treats on the tables. Sausage rolls with the pastry wrapped around the sausage like a mummies bandages. Discs of Red Leicester cheese as Jack-o-Lanterns on crackers, and banana ghosts which had been cut in two, stood on end and had chocolate icing eyes and mouths added, along with many more themed nibbles and desserts.

Jackie came up by the side of her, filling her plate with food. 'Enjoyin' yerself?'

'Definitely. I've never been to a party like this before,' Donna told her.

'To tell ya the truth, neither had I until I came to Pete's World and started livin' the high life,' Jackie confided.

'Oh yeah, John and Rose told me about that,' Donna said, and then had one of the Doctor's memories come into her head from "other" Donna. 'An' I can remember when the Doctor and Rose were here disguised as the waitin' staff . . . On that terrible night.'

Jackie looked at her in amazement. 'You mean you've got all the Doctor's memories in yer head?'

'Well, most of 'em I think, yeah.'

Jackie had a glint in her eye. With a plate of food in one hand, she took Donna's elbow with the other and guided her towards the Sitting Room. 'Let's find a seat so we can have a chat. There should be a free sofa somewhere. An' if there ain't, I'll turf 'em out. After all, I am the hostess.'

Donna cast a cheeky glance at Jackie's ample cleavage on display in her Vampira costume. 'The hostess with the mostest by the look of it,' she said with a cheeky grin.

Jackie spurted a laugh. 'Oh I just knew I was gonna like you, Donna.'

'So what's he like then?' Jackie asked after they'd found a seat. 'Really like? Because gettin' anythin' out of 'im was like pullin' teeth.'

Donna looked suspiciously at Jackie. 'You didn't just invite me to dish the dirt on 'im did ya?'

Jackie playfully slapped Donna's knee. 'Of course not. But I ain't gonna look a gift 'orse in the mouth, am I?'

Donna laughed and thought about her newly acquired memories. 'Now, John gave me his memories of the Doctor and Donna, through Rose and their shared link. So I got a bit of Rose's memories of the Doctor as well. And the first hand memories only go up to the moment John was born. After that I see Donna through their eyes.'

'I love it when they do that Mister Spock thing,' Jackie told her with a smile.

Donna looked off into the distance as she recalled the Doctor's memories. 'When he met Rose, he was hurtin'. I think he was sufferin' from that post traumatic stress disorder. He'd just had to perform an act of atrocity to save the universe, and that went against everythin' he believed in. He'd lost all of his people, an' he felt so alone.'

'I had no idea,' Jackie said quietly. 'He never said.'

Donna then raised her eyebrows in surprise. 'You were flirtin' with 'im. You tart!' she said jokingly.

'I never,' Jackie protested.

'He's standin' at the door to your bedroom, and you're in your dressin' gown.'

Jackie's mouth fell open. 'Oh my God. That was the mornin' after Henrick's blew up!'

'That was it,' Donna told her, and then looked into the distance again as she remembered. 'I think he resented you.' Jackie looked shocked. 'No. Not you specifically. He resented not bein' able to have an ordinary life like you and Rose. Believe it or not, all he ever wanted was a quiet life.'

'Funny way of showin' it,' Jackie scoffed.

'Yeah, but he couldn't just turn his back on somethin' if it wasn't right. Not if he could do somethin' to help . . . An' most of the time, he was the only one who could.'

'That's what Rose said once,' Jackie remembered. 'The Doctor showed her a better way of livin' her life. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away.'

A memory popped into Donna's head. 'Never cruel, never cowardly. Never give up, never give in,' she said with a frown. 'Not sure where that came from . . . But it seems to be at the core of his being.' She looked at Jackie and smiled. 'He has a great deal of respect for you y'know, although he'd never tell you. So don't you dare tell 'im I told you so.'

Jackie looked thoughtful. 'No . . . Of course not.'

'When he regenerated,' Donna continued. 'Some of the energy he'd taken from Rose got mixed in with his transformation. It helped him heal his wounds. After that, he had a more positive outlook. I think Rose gave him hope for the future.'

'Yeah. I knew somethin' was different when he agreed to stay for Christmas dinner,' Jackie remembered. 'That northern git he'd been before would never have agreed to it.'

Donna laughed. 'He told me he'd spent Christmas Day with a friend and her family on the Powell Estate. It was the Christmas after that when I first met 'im. He has really fond memories of that Christmas.'

'Oh yeah. Rose said you and "other" you got married at the same time,' Jackie said.

'Well, "other" me never made it to the altar. I got caught up in a plot by a giant spider to take over the Earth . . . Bonkers eh?'

'Was that when me an' Rose were over here?' Jackie asked.

'Yeah. He'd just said goodbye to Rose and was in bits . . . He'd been cryin' y'know.'

'Oh God. We never heard what they said to each other, but Rose broke her heart on that beach. I never realised that he did as well.'

'Yeah. He'd never tell ya . . . Bit of a bloke y'see . . . An alien bloke at that,' Donna said with a lopsided smile. 'There's somethin' I'm dyin' to know Jackie?'

'What's that?' Jackie asked.

'I was wonderin' how we got on after the Crucible incident, cos I've only got John and Rose's memories of it.'

Jackie laughed. 'You were brilliant. You saved us. So after the Doctor had organised everyone around the TARDIS console . . . Everyone except me that is. The bugger didn't trust me to touch anythin'.'

'How do you set the timer on yer DVD?' Donna asked, and Jackie gave her a puzzled look. 'Yer don't know do ya? That's why he left you out. But I can see us leanin' against the handrail, talkin'.'

'Oh yeah. I remember. So after the Doctor had got everybody organised, you were askin' me how I got onto the Crucible, an' I was explainin' how Mickey had smuggled me over with the Dimension Cannon,' Jackie remembered. 'An' I was askin' you about John and what that was all about. You tried to explain it, but it went over me head. But I do remember you sayin' not to worry about Rose, because the Doctor had a plan an' everythin' would work out for the best.'

'Was that when he left Rose behind with John?' Donna asked quietly.

'Yeah. An' although Rose was angry with 'im at first for leavin' her behind, everythin' did work out for the best in the end.'

Donna thought about how much the Doctor loved Rose. His sacrifice was of Shakespearian proportions. 'That must have been SO hard for him to leave her behind. He loved her so much that he wanted her to have a normal life . . . Well, as normal as you can when you work for Torchwood.'

But she realised that there was also a selfish reason for leaving her behind. "But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you love" he'd told Rose once. Well, almost.

'I never thought about it from the Doctor's point of view before,' Jackie said guiltily. 'Havin' John here, I forgot about other 'im an' how he might be feelin'.'

'Well, you've never met anyone before who can split themselves into two, have ya?' Donna asked with a smile.

'No. Yer right. Thanks for this little chat Donna. It's made me see things in a different light.'

'No, thank you Jackie. It's been good to catch up,' Donna said.

Jackie looked around the room. 'Right. I think it's time for the hostess with the mostest to start minglin' again.' She stood up, and Donna stood with her. They headed towards the music coming from the Ballroom.

'. . . it was a graveyard smash. He did the mash, it caught on in a flash. He did the mash, he did the monster mash,' Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers were singing from the DJ's Halloween playlist in the Ballroom. John and Rose were jiving to the rhythm, whilst Jack was hamming it up with Rex. Donna had found Shaun and dragged him away from a conversation about someone called Frank Lloyd Wright, to lay down some moves on the dance floor.

'. . . then you can monster mash . . . Mash good . . ! Easy, Igor, you impetuous young boy . . . Mash good! Grrr!' the song ended.

John felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Jackie in her tall, black wig, and revealing Vampira costume. There was something odd about her expression.

She reached up and stroked his cheek. 'I'm sorry.'

'Eh? What for?' John asked in confusion.

'For everythin',' she replied and pulled him into a hug. John's arms flapped about by his sides ineffectually. She released him from the hug and kissed his cheek. 'Thank you for bein' the best son-in-law a mother could have.'

She turned and walked away without another word, and John watched her go, completely baffled as to what had just occurred.

Rose gave a giggle at John's expression. 'What was all that about?'

'I have absolutely NO idea. Either someone's spiked her drink, or she's been abducted by aliens and replaced by a doppelgänger.'

The strains of Michael Jackson's Thriller started up. John shrugged his shoulders, turned to his wife, and they started to do the zombie dance from the video. John and Rose's children, Eyulf, Juleshka, and Jason were in front of the DJ's stand, and with their linked minds, they coordinated their dance moves to perform the scene from the video to perfection. Rose's fifteen year old brother Tony, Alistair's five year old daughter Lillie, and the children of some of the other guests were also in line, trying to keep up with the moves. The overall effect was stunning, and got a huge round of applause from the adults.

'Hi Donna,' a zombie bride called out. 'You made it then.'

Donna frowned until she worked out who it was under the makeup. 'Alice! Hi. Yeah. It's a great party.' Donna knew Alice from the Blue Watch Babes Night In that she had been invited to. And from the TV show of course. Donna turned to Shaun. 'This is my husband, Shaun.'

Alice shook his hand. 'Hello Shaun. Nice to meet you.'

'You too,' Shaun replied. 'I've heard a lot about you. Oh, and I've seen you on the show of course.'

As they were talking, Alistair approached with a young girl holding his hand.

'Mummy. Did you see us dancing?' she asked.

Alice picked her up and gave her a hug. 'I did Sweetheart. You were all brilliant.'

'Oh. Is this your daughter then?' Donna asked.

'Yes. This is Lillie. Say hello to mummy's friend Donna,' Alice said.

'Hello,' Lillie said shyly.

'Hello Lillie,' Donna replied with a smile. She then put two and two together. 'Hang on. Does that mean that Count Dracula here's yer husband?'

Alice laughed. 'Partner really, but yes. Alistair's Lillie's father.'

'I wish yer'd have told me,' Donna said to Alistair. 'I wouldn't 'ave been so scared when I arrived.'

'Scared?' Alice asked in confusion. Alistair's costume wasn't that scary.

'Yeah. Said he'd got to announce us. I thought it was gonna be like lord and lady Templeton of Dunwich, or somethin',' Donna told her.

'Alistair!' Alice said to her husband in a "how could you?" tone of voice.'

Alistair grinned and nodded past them. 'It was Rose's idea. And she pulled rank on me, being my bosses daughter.'

They all turned to see a sexy witch looking at them with an innocent smile. 'What?'

'An' I thought y'were me friend,' Donna said with a lopsided smile.

'Well. You were expectin' a big posh, formal do,' Rose said with a grin. 'So I thought, "why not give 'er what she wants?".'

Donna was about to protest, and then realised that Rose was absolutely right. She had been anticipating a high society party, the type she'd seen in films and television dramas. And this party was anything but. Okay, it was in a posh house, and some of the guest were from the upper echelons of society, but the atmosphere was informal and as down to earth as you could get

'Nice one,' Donna said with a laugh. 'Yer got me.'

A guitar riff started up and Richard O'Brien began narrating the start of the song. 'It's astounding; Time is fleeting; Madness takes its toll . . .

'Ooh. Time Warp,' Donna said excitedly. She slapped Shaun's chest with the back of her hand. 'Come on, we can all do the dance.'

'But listen closely . . .'

'Hah. John and me did this on the karaoke at our weddin',' Rose remembered as they all hurried onto the dance floor to continue enjoying a great Halloween party.


	6. Abduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Alice have an eventful drive into work. André has to make a split second decision which he later regrets. Rose finds a new way to get her Bad Wolf vibe on.

**Chapter 6**

**Abduction**

**The Smith's Residence.**

**Northumberland Place.**

**Notting Hill, London.**

**Tuesday 10th November, 2026**

Rickey the Cyberdog trotted into the kitchen to announce that his programming was complete and the children were now awake with a "Woof".

'Good lad Rickey,' Donna-The-Robot said, reaching into the bowl of batteries, and flipping one into the air. He caught it in his mouth and swallowed it. He would absorb the energy and "poo" out the used battery later when it had been drained.

'Good boy,' Rose said, as she sat at the breakfast bar in her smart, black, Torchwood uniform, eating her muesli. A few minutes later, she heard small footsteps coming down the stairs and along the hallway. A young, red headed girl entered the kitchen, the hair colour having been inherited from her grandfather.

She was wearing her school uniform of grey pinafore dress, white polo shirt, and a blue cardigan with the school crest embroidered on it.

'Mornin' Sweetheart,' Rose said with a smile, as she helped her daughter up onto the stool and kissed her on the top of her head.

'Morning Mum, morning Donna.'

Donna's visual interface smiled. 'Hello Juleshka. Cheerios is it?'

'Yes please,' she said with delight.

As Donna-The-Robot prepared a bowl of Cheerios, they heard two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs.

'Morning,' Eyulf said as he breezed into the kitchen with his brother Jason.

'Mornin' Son,' Rose said, as she turned down the collar of his polo shirt and tucked it into the neck of his blue, school sweatshirt. He still seemed unable to get that right. She ran her fingers through his unruly hair, trying to get it into some semblance of order, before kissing him on the head.

'Shreddies?' Donna asked Eyulf.

'Er, can I have some cornflakes this morning please Donna?'

'Course y'can. And Jason, what would you like for breakfast?'

'Can I have cornflakes as well please?'

'No problem. Two bowls comin' right up.'

John strolled into the kitchen wearing his usual brown, pinstriped suit, and sat next to Rose at the end of the counter. He took a piece of toast, spread some orange marmalade on it, and took a bite.

'Alice is here,' Donna-the-house announced.

'Can you let her in please Donna,' Rose said.

They heard the front door open and close, and the clip-clop of heels along the hallway. There was a chorus of greetings as Alice entered the kitchen, wearing a black trouser suit, with a white blouse.

'How's Lillie this mornin'?' Rose asked with her usual greeting.

'Looking forward to the school outing to the zoo,' Alice smiled.

'We went there last year,' seven year old Jason informed her. 'It was brilliant.'

Rose finished her mug of tea, licked her lips, puckered up, and gave John a snog. 'See ya later Love,' she said with her tongue through the teeth smile.

'I'll be up for my usual cup of tea,' he replied, stroking her hips.

She reached her purse off the counter, and rummaged inside to find her lipstick and mirror. She applied her lippy, and pursed her lips together. 'Right, I'm ready. Be good kids and I'll see you later.'

'Bye Mum. Bye Auntie Alice,' Eyulf, Juleshka, and Jason called back.

'Bye,' Rose and Alice said as they headed down the hallway to the front door.

They climbed into Alice's silver VW e-Golf which was parked outside the Smith's house.

'I can't believe Lillie's five already,' Rose said as she fastened her seatbelt. 'Where has the time gone?'

'I know. It seems like only yesterday when she was born,' Alice said as she started the car and pulled away.

They carried on chatting away as they drove east across London towards the Docklands, along The Highway. They waited at the traffic lights at the junction with Butcher Row, where they would go straight on towards Limehouse Link Tunnel. The lights turned green, and Alice drove forward.

'ALICE!' Rose cried out as she caught a flash of movement through the corner of her eye.

A large truck had run the red light and was bearing down on them. It hit the passenger side of the car with a deafening crunch, and shunted it across the carriageway. All the airbags activated, sparing Rose and Alice from serious injury, but not from the effect of being tossed about inside a tumble dryer.

['Rose? Are you okay?'] John asked in her head. He'd felt the collision in their shared link.

['Urgh . . . Yeah . . . I think so,'] she thought back. ['A bit shook up. Some dickhead jumped the lights and broadsided us.']

['Where are you? I'll call the emergency services.']

['Oh, thanks Love . . . On The Highway, at the junction with Butcher Row.']

['Okay. I'm calling them now. How's Alice?']

['Okay I think. I'm just going to check her now.'] She put a hand on Alice's shoulder. 'Alice? Are you okay?'

'Er . . . Yes, I think so,' Alice replied as they heard a siren approaching.

'Blimey! That was quick. They must have been in the area,' Rose said as an ambulance approached from the direction of Limehouse Link Tunnel.

Two paramedics climbed out of the cab and hurried towards them, one to each side of the car.

'Are you ladies all right?' Rose's paramedic asked through the smashed side window. Rose turned her head to speak to him. 'NO! Don't move. You may have a neck injury.' He reached inside the car and held her chin and the back of her neck. 'Hold still while we get a neck brace on you.'

He reached down to his bag with one hand and instead of bringing out a neck brace, he had a spray canister which he sprayed in Rose's face.

'Hey. Watcha doin'?' Rose asked.

'It's just a pain relief spray. It'll help when we put the collar on,' the paramedic told her.

'Oh. Right,' Rose said, as she felt the spray take effect. Her vision started to blur, and everything went echoey.

['Rose? Are you okay?'] John asked in her head, but she didn't reply. ['Rose . . ? Rose . . ? ROSE . . ?']

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

'Dad, what's wrong with Mum?' Juleshka asked from the passenger seat of the DeLorean as John ended the call to the emergency services.

'She's been in an accident, but she's all right, and so is Aunt Alice.'

Lonsdale Road was busy with a number of cars doing the school run. John pulled into the small car park in front of the imposing, Edwardian red brick building of Juleshka's and Jason's school. The passenger door rose up, and Juleshka and Jason climbed out of the car.

'Don't worry about your mum. I'm going over there now to make sure she's okay. Have a good day, and we'll see you later.'

'Okay Dad. See you later,' they replied.

The door lowered, and John set off along Lonsdale Road, back the way he had come to get on to the Westway which would take him towards the city. He felt Rose's thoughts become "fuzzy", and was worried that she had sustained a concussion.

['Rose? Are you okay?'] he asked in her head, but he could feel she was struggling to stay conscious. ['Rose?'] There was still no response, and she was fading. ['Rose . . ? ROSE?']

He felt her slip away and was frantic with worry. The DeLorean didn't have any siren or blue lights, so he couldn't rush to the scene. While the car drove itself, he took his smartphone out of his jacket pocket and called up an app. He pressed the "activate" button, and Rose's tattoo transponder started to transmit. He knew that the Despatcher at Torchwood would scramble a team in response and speed to her location.

His phone started to ring and he answered immediately.

['John? It's Gwen on Dispatch. Rose's transponder has just activated.']

'Yeah, I know. I activated it. She and Alice have been involved in an RTC. Rose has slipped into unconsciousness. I need someone there double quick.'

['Stuart, Pete, Angel and André are blue lighting it there. André's a former paramedic so she'll be in good hands. Try not to worry John. I'll keep you updated until you get there.']

'Thanks Gwen. That's reassuring.'

He carried on driving along the Westway, when his phone rang again. He saw it was Torchwood Despatch.

'Gwen? What you got?'

['Rose's transponder signal is on the move. She must have been picked up by paramedics.']

'Thanks Gwen. Do we know which hospital she's being taken to?'

['Hold on . . . They're heading towards Whitechapel, so it must be the London Republic.']

'Okay. I'm on the way.' He was heading in that direction anyway to get to The Docklands.

A few minutes later, his phone rang again. This time though, the caller display said "Ace".

['Doc. It's Stuart. I'm at the scene of the accident. Two ambulances are here, and Alice is okay. We've asked the paramedics to take her to Torchwood for our doctors to look after her . . .']

John did a double take of what Stuart had just said. 'Two ambulances? Why are there two? Rose is already on her way to the London Republic.'

['Er, that's why I'm phoning Doc. The second ambulance was for the second casualty . . . Rose.']

John had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. 'Then who the hell's got Rose?'

['That's what we were wondering. We're tracking Rose's transponder and are on route to intercept. We didn't know if you had any information. You know with that Mister Spock thing you and Rose have going on.']

Even though he was sick with worry, that made John laugh. 'I'll see what I can do. I'm putting Delores on automatic intercept with Rose's transponder while I try and "Spock" her.'

['Okay Doc. See you soon.']

While the car drove across London, John reached out with his mind to find Rose's unconscious mind. Their shared psyche was beyond conscious thought, unlike their normal mind sharing which required them to think. It was as if she were in bed and he was slipping under the duvet to join her.

['Rose?']

['Hmmm?']

['We need to wake you up.']

['What for? It's SO comfortable here.']

['You're being kidnapped.']

He felt her consciousness jump a little. ['Wha?']

['Yep. So I'm going to stimulate your adrenal cortex and get a bit of adrenaline flowing.']

['Mmmm. I love it when you talk technical.']

['Of course you do,'] he said with a mental grin. ['Now we increase the blood flow to you liver and metabolise that sedative.']

['Sedative?'] she asked, with a bit more alertness. ['Some bugger's drugged me?']

['Yep']

['Right. Let's get this stuff metabolised and I'll give 'em what for.']

['That's my girl. Just hang on until backup arrives.']

['Who's comin'?']

['Irish, Welsh, Wings and The Giant. They should be intercepting the ambulance in a few minutes.']

['Okay Love. See you soon.']

When John looked at the sat-nav screen, he saw that he was a few hundred yards away from Rose's signal.

['John? I've sneaked a peek in the back of the ambulance, and these guys are tooled up.']

['Ah. That changes things. Play possum until it kicks off. If they've gone to the trouble to kidnap you, I doubt they'll want any harm to come to you. I'll contact Craig and let him know. I've got an idea how to end this safely.']

['Okay Love. Keep in touch.']

John speed dialled Stuart. 'Stuart, it's John. Rose says they're packing weapons.'

['Shit! That complicates things,'] Stuart said.

'Yeah, but I've got an idea. I'm going to get in front of them. They won't suspect my vehicle. You bring up the rear and wait for them to pull up sharp.'

['What you got in mind Doc?']

'You'll see. Just be ready to go as soon as they stop. I'll leave the call open on "hands free".'

['Don't worry Doc. We'll be all over them like a rash.']

John turned down a side road and put his foot down. He turned right down another side road at speed and turned left onto the main road in front of the ambulance. He reached over and opened the glove compartment and took out a small delta winged drone and control tablet. He powered the system up and threw the drone out of the window.

'I'm in front of them now. I'm going to use the "Hawk" to incapacitate them. Standby.'

['In position,'] Stuart replied.

['Rose, I'm about to dazzle the driver, so it might get a bit rough back there,'] John thought to her.

['Okay. I'm on a stretcher and they've put the safety belt across me, so I should be fine.']

['Good. Here we go then.']

John flew the drone ahead of him and banked up and to one side, performed a barrel roll, and flew it straight back towards him. He pressed a button on the tablet and the "NightSun" searchlight on the drone switched on, shining a circle of intense blue/white light on the ground. The drone flew over the DeLorean, straight at the windscreen of the ambulance. He banked the drone upwards, and the cab was filled with blinding light.

There was a black disk in the centre of the driver's vision as he tried to continue driving. He realised it was futile as the ambulance started to swerve and bumped up the kerb onto the pavement. He slammed on the brakes, and two black Range Rovers swerved in front of them. The occupants sprang out, using the doors and the front of the cars for cover.

'ARMED AGENTS!' Stuart shouted. 'OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE. DROP ANY WEAPONS AND KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM.'

The windscreen shattered in a hail of bullets from an automatic weapon. A woman cried out behind them as she was hit by one of the random bullets. This triggered a reflex in André and his training took over. That woman's cry could quite easily have come from his pregnant wife. André took aim with his Heckler & Koch MP5SF and fired at the passenger in the ambulance. His head jerked backwards and then slumped against the passenger side window. He then holstered his sidearm, checked on his wife, reached the first aid kit from the Range Rover, and ran to help the injured civilian.

Rose felt the ambulance bump up the kerb and knew it was time to act. She carefully reached for the buckle of the safety belt and pressed the release button. She sat up suddenly, and her minder turned to look at her with a puzzled look on his face. She was supposed to be asleep. Her right hand shot out and gripped the man's forehead, her thumb on one temple, her little finger on the other.

The man's eyes went wide and his jaw dropped as he saw a large, black, growling wolf in front of him. It's teeth dripping with saliva as it prepared to rip his throat out. A whimper escaped from his lips as his bladder emptied and he collapsed to the deck in neurogenic shock.

['Assailant in the back neutralised,'] Rose thought to John.

['Oh, you naughty girl,'] John thought back as he picked up on what she had done.

['I'm gettin' good at this fightin' without fightin','] she thought with her tongue-between-the-teeth grin.

The back doors of the ambulance opened, and Rose jumped down into a hug and kiss from her husband.

'What was the gunfire I heard?' Rose asked him as they walked to the front of the ambulance, where Stuart had got the driver in handcuffs.

'The guy riding shotgun took it literally. Even though he couldn't see. André had to shoot him,' John explained.

'Wha', Dead?' she asked with concern.

'Yeah. He didn't have time to reach for his stunner. A woman had already been hit.'

'Is she all right?'

'I think so. André is with her now.'

They heard a wailing of sirens and a screeching of tyres as police vehicles pulled up around them.

'ARMED POLICE! PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!' an officer called out, pointing an automatic weapon at the armed agents.

Stuart, Pete and Angel held their arms out away from their bodies, holding their weapons by the barrels. 'I'm a Torchwood agent. The people in this ambulance are not paramedics. They kidnapped one of our agents and fired indiscriminately when we challenged them.'

The police officer visibly relaxed. 'Okay. Just put the firearms down and show me some ID.'

Stuart put his SA 80 assault rifle on the floor and walked towards the officer, slowly reaching into his top pocket to take out his Torchwood ID. He held it out at arms length for the officer to read.

'Stuart Sinclair, Special Operations. This is Doctor John Smith, Head of the Scientific Investigation Unit, and this is Rose Smith, my supervisor and kidnap victim,' Stuart explained.

'OKAY TEAM. STAND DOWN,' the officer called out to other officers.

'That's Pete Davies there. And over there are Angel Coulthard, and André Coulthard who are tending to a civilian who got hit in the crossfire,' Stuart continued.

'Aston. Peterson. There's a civilian casualty over there,' the officer said.

'Sir!' they replied, and ran over to offer assistance.

André and Angel then joined their comrades. 'She woz hit in ze chest. I have plugged ze wound and applied a dressing. Paramedics are on ze way.' They could hear sirens getting closer.

'We have a fatality,' the officer said as he looked at the shattered windscreen of the ambulance.

'Zat was me,' André said with a haunted look in his eyes.

'I'll need your weapon,' the officer told him.

'Of course,' André replied, taking it out of the holster. It was routine for an investigation to be performed when a firearm had been discharged and caused a fatality.

'We'll upload the footage from all the personal cameras when we get back to the institute,' Rose told the officer and he nodded. She then went over to André and gently squeezed his arm. 'You okay?'

'I've just killed a man,' André replied. Angel reached down and held his hand, intertwining her fingers with his.

'Hey. He gave you no choice. If you'd reached for your stunner, how many more people would have been hit? How many innocent bystanders dead?' Rose asked him.

'Perhaps . . . But he's still dead.'

'I know. Look, when we get back to Torchwood, fill out your report, and then go and see one of the counsellors in Psychology,' Rose told him.

He saw that she was being his supervisor and looking out for his mental well being. 'Okay.'

'Good. Now there's another one of these "low lifes" in the back of the ambulance that needs cuffing,' she said with a smile. 'I don't think you'll be able to read him his rights for a while though.' Angel nodded and went to extract the assailant from the ambulance.

John came and put his arm around Rose's shoulders. 'Nicely done Wife . . . Nicely done.'


	7. Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens as a team goes to investigate a giant amoeba on a golf course. John hears a phrase he first heard in his 6th body. References are made to Big Finish’s “Project: Twilight” audio book.

**Chapter 7**

**Ambush**

**Torchwood Research Department.**

**8th floor of Torchwood Tower.**

**Tuesday 10** **th** **November 2026.**

Detective Inspector Jason Fielding, the Torchwood liaison for the Metropolitan Police, was sitting in the Meeting Room of the Torchwood Research Department with Jack, John, Rose, Andy McNab and a representative from the legal department named Christian.

'The lorry that ran into you was stolen in the early hours of the morning,' Jason read from his report. 'No forensics, so we don't know who it was.'

'And the low lifes in the ambulance?' Jack asked.

In answer to that question, Jason put two evidence bags on the table. They seemed to contain pp3 sized, 9 Volt batteries.

'What are those?' Rose asked.

John picked one up and looked at it. 'It looks like a 9 Volt battery.'

'They do, don't they,' Jason agreed. 'The arresting officers got the suspects into the Custody Suite at the station and got them to empty their pockets. They took these out, said "for King and Country", and pressed them against their necks.'

'Oh, don't tell me they're some sort of suicide device,' Jack groaned.

'They were dead before they hit the floor,' Jason told him. 'We found another device on the dead man.'

'Can we have one of those to analyse?' Jack asked.

'Yes please,' Jason said, handing one of the bags to Jack. 'We need all the help we can get.'

'For King and Country?' John said thoughtfully. 'I've heard that phrase before . . . Sorry Jason, carry on.'

'Is it important, Doc?' Jack asked.

'Possibly. I'll explain later,' John told him in a tone of voice which said it was for Torchwood ears only. He sent Rose his recollections telepathically, in preparation for a secret meeting with Jack.

Jason continued with the briefing. 'All of the suspects had form for GBH and armed robbery.' He took out the arrest records and passed them around. 'Joseph McAvoy, the driver. His talents were highly sought after by the criminal underworld. If it's got wheels and an engine, he could drive it. Ex military. Learned to drive all sorts of vehicles.'

'Probably Transportation Corps,' Andy informed them.

Jason checked. 'Yes, that's right . . . The guy who was shot, was Grant Mitchell. A bit of a loose cannon. Again, ex military. Discharged with post traumatic stress disorder. Beat a guy to a pulp once just because he spilt a drink on his jacket.'

'A short fuse then,' John said.

'Yes. And it wasn't even an expensive jacket,' Jason added. 'Now, the guy in the back of the ambulance was a gibbering wreck when he came to. He actually wanted us to lock him up so the werewolf didn't get him. He must have been under the influence of something pretty strong.'

'You could say that,' Rose agreed with an enigmatic smile.

Jason looked at Rose,and then back to his notes. 'Barry Connelly. He'd been part of the criminal underworld for years. Worked on the doors at various "dubious" establishments run by the Firm.'

'Kidnapping seems a bit out of their league,' John observed.

'Yes. We don't think they organised this. They were probably hired muscle for someone else.'

'Presumably for a ransom,' Rose reasoned. 'Me bein' an heiress to the Tyler fortune.'

'That would seem to be the obvious motive,' Jason agreed.

'What about leads?' Jack asked. 'Mobile phones? Call records? Texts?'

'Only one,' Jason told them. 'Off the shelf, with a pay-as-you-go sim, held by Mitchell, with only one call from an unregistered number, just after the collision.'

'Presumably purchased for the job,' Andy said. 'Covert, untraceable communications, and throw them away afterwards.'

'Damn. That's good,' Jack said. 'So it's quite reasonable to assume that they never knew the person who contacted them.'

'That's right,' Jason agreed. 'I'm afraid whoever it is has covered their tracks really well.'

Andy looked at John and Rose. 'John. I'd like your family to wear the tattoo transponders. That includes the Tylers as well. If this was a kidnap attempt, they might try a softer target next time.'

'Good idea Andy. I'll take some home with me this afternoon,' John replied.

Rose grabbed John's hand. 'You don't think they'd try to snatch the kids do you?'

'There's no evidence that this was related to your family's wealth,' Jason said, trying to alleviate her concerns. 'They could have gone for a softer target in the first place.'

'Good point,' Jack realised. 'This might be something to do with Torchwood. We're in the Research Department, let's get a team to look for anyone who might hold a grudge against you.'

With the meeting concluded, they left Jason and Chrisitan in the Meeting Room to go over the legal details of the attempted abduction and deaths of the suspects. Jack gave Andy the evidence bag to take to Chrissie in the Technical Support Department, before taking John and Rose to his office on the top floor.

'For king and country?' Jack asked as they sat down in the swivel chairs.

'It was in the old universe, and I was in my sixth regeneration,' John began. 'I was travelling with Peri . . .'

'Was that Peri Brown, the American student?' Rose asked.

John smiled. 'That's her. I first heard the phrase at the turn of the twentieth century, on the Lankester, a cargo ship travelling out of Madagascar. They were transporting a captured mermaid to a buyer in New Orleans. The Chief Mate used it as a code phrase over the radio.'

'So why would a couple of heavies in the twenty-first century be using the same phrase?' Jack asked. 'We don't even have a monarchy over here.'

'Ah, well. It was a hundred years later, in Bermondsey.' John continued with a far away look in his eyes as he remembered. 'I'd just picked up my order of Peking crispy duck from The Slow Boat Chinese take-away. They did the best Peking duck y'know. I was with Evelyn at the time.'

'Evelyn Smythe?' Rose asked. 'History lecturer?'

'That's her. We found a load of dead cats and dogs around the restaurant, and stumbled across a secret research program conducted by a government organisation known as the Forge.'

'The Forge?' Jack asked. 'Never heard of them.'

'You wouldn't. Unlike Torchwood, who were outside of the Government, the Forge were funded by them under the name of Department C4.'

'And this research program was to create vampire soldiers using a genetically engineered virus,' Rose recalled from John's telepathic briefing.

'That's right,' John confirmed. 'So I sorted that out, and came across them in my seventh regeneration on various occasions. They were always up to no good. Very keen on cloning and trying to create the perfect soldier.'

'Do you think this organisation could exist over here?' Jack asked.

'Parallel world, parallel Torchwood. Why not parallel Forge?' John reasoned.

'Who was the director?' Jack asked, opening the lid on his laptop.

'He called himself Nimrod, but his real name was William Abberton,' John told him.

Jack typed in the name into the Torchwood search engine. 'Would that be Doctor William Abberton?'

'That's him,' John confirmed.

'Died of natural causes in July of this year,' Jack read. 'It says here he worked in an unspecified role for the Government.'

Jack pressed a button on the phone on his desk, and it dialled a number. There was the "burring" noise of the phone ringing before someone picked up.

['Jack. What can I do for you?'] President Harriet Jones asked on speaker-phone.

'Harriet. Sorry to disturb you. Just a quick question. Have you ever heard of The Forge?'

['What is it? A public house?']

'Not that I'm aware of,' Jack answered. 'What about Department C4?'

[C4? C4 . . . That sounds familiar. I'm sure I've heard Geoffrey Miller mention something about C4. Mind you, that could have been the explosive.'] Geoffrey Miller was the Secretary of Defence

'One more question Harriet. Have you heard of Doctor William Abberton?'

['Jack, what do you know about William Abberton?'] Harriet asked suspiciously.

'Only that he died in June and had an unspecified role in your Government.'

['Interesting. Because I'd only heard of him when he was found dead in his bed, and was asked to write a letter of sympathy to his family. All I know is that he was connected to medical research for the Ministry of Defence,'] Harriet told him. ['What's going on Jack?']

John leaned forwards and spoke. 'Harriet, it's John Smith. I think there is a secret government department operating within the Ministry of Defence, and I think they are attacking Torchwood.'

['A secret department! I'm not having that,'] Harriet said forcefully. ['Leave it with me. I'll get to the bottom it.']

'Thanks Harrie. We'll speak soon.'

John and Rose made their way back to the Special Operations Department. Rose went to the kitchen area of the Standby Room, and poured two cups of tea, giving one to John, and then heading for the supervisor's office. She looked across the room at the bulletin boards and various members of the Watch, and saw Chrissie "Brains" Anderson who had been covering for her whilst she'd been in the meeting. 'How is it?' Rose asked.

'Fairly standard. Legs and Other Craig are interviewing a professor of antiquities at the British Library. He thinks he's found something in an ancient religious text that refers to a nuclear weapon destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.'

'Blimey. You call that standard,' Rose said with a laugh.

Chrissie laughed with her. 'Yeah. And Numbers and Ace have gone to investigate a blob on a golf course.'

'A blob?' John queried.

'A blob,' Chrissie confirmed.

'I hope they're careful.'

'Careful? Of a blob?' Rose asked.

'Yeah. Haven't you heard? They creep and they leap. They glide and slide. Across the floor . . . Well across the fairway if they're on a golf course,' John said with a grin. 'So, be careful of the blob,' he finished.

'What was that?' Rose asked.

'Don't tell me you haven't seen The Blob?' John asked with eyebrows raised in disbelief. 'Classic film. The critics panned it, but the kids loved it. Not sure it did Steve McQueen any favours though.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

**Northbound carriageway M1 Motorway,**

**Edgeware,**

**London.**

Gwen "Numbers" O"Toole drove the black Torchwood Range Rover, whilst Craig "Ace" Rimmer checked the information on his tablet PC. 'Shendish Manor Hotel and Golf Course, just off the A41 near Hemel Hempstead. It looks a bit posh.'

Gwen gave him a sideways glance and a cheeky smile. 'A greasy spoon cafe on an industrial estate would look posh to you.'

He grinned back at her. 'Hah! Says a girl from Manchester.'

'Oi. I'm from Altrincham!' she told him with a hint of indignation. 'It's a lovely suburb.'

'It's still in Manchester though,' he retorted.

She glared at him, and then burst out laughing. 'Yeah. Can't deny that.'

Their camera director, David Rea chuckled to himself in the back seat as he filmed their interactions. The viewing public loved this friendly banter.

He continued to read the assignment details. 'Some golfers found a large gelatinous blob on the fairway of the first green. They thought they could see a dead animal inside it so they called the police.'

'What kind of dead animal?' asked Gwen.

'Dunno. Could be a fox or a dog. The police constables were freaked out by it. Thought it was some kind of giant amoeba from out of space and called us.'

'Somebody's been watching that Steve McQueen film, The Blob on the movie channel,' Gwen laughed.

'I hope not,' Craig said with a shudder. 'That thing grew to the size of a house.'

'Really? I've never seen it.'

'You've never seen the cult, "B" movie classic? It's so bad, it's brilliant.'

'So it's you who's been watching it on the movie channel,' Gwen teased.

'Too right. Classic sci-fi movies should be part of the Torchwood induction. It would prepare the rookies for all the weird stuff that goes on there.'

Gwen raised her eyebrows and nodded. 'You could be right.'

['Take the first exit from the roundabout onto the A-four-one-four,'] the satnav instructed.

After a few more directions from the satnav, they ended up on a narrow lane that led to a grey stone manor house with a modern glass extension attached.

'Ooh. This is nice,' Gwen said.

'Told you it was posh, didn't I.'

'You did, yes,' Gwen agreed. 'So who's our contact then?'

'A bloke called Sebastian Chalcroft. He's the manager,' Craig read.

'Even the manager sounds posh . . . Ah, do you reckon it's that chap in the sharp suit walking towards us?'

'Posh gaff, posh name and a posh suit. It's got to be.' Craig lowered the side window.

'You must be Torchwood,' the man said. 'Sebastian Chalcroft. I'm the manager.'

'Ah, thought you might be Sir. I'm Field Agent Craig Rimmer, and this is my partner Gwen O'Toole,' Craig said as he opened the door and stepped out.

'Hello,' Gwen said cheerfully. 'We have a cameraman with us filming a documentary. Is it okay if he films our investigation?'

'Er, yes. Of course. As long as it doesn't cause any bad publicity . . . It won't, will it?'

'David Rea. I'm one of the camera directors for the production company,' Rea said, shaking Sebastian's hand. 'You'll be invited to view the final edit before it goes on air. If you have any objections, we'll re-edit the footage until you're happy with it.'

'Really? Oh well, that's fine then,' Chalcroft said with a smile. 'The thing you're looking for is over there by the trees on the side of the fairway,' he told them pointing to the golf course they had driven past on the way in.

'Thank you,' said Gwen.

Craig took out a pair of digital binoculars and switched them on. He looked in the direction Chalcroft had indicated and the binoculars zoomed in, displaying the range, size, and GPS coordinates of the object. 'I see it. Come on Numbers. We've got a bit of a walk.'

'There's a golf buggy parked over there you can use,' Sebastian offered.

'Seriously?' Craig asked in open mouthed surprise. 'Oh I have always wanted to have a go in one of those. Come on. Dave, you can jump on the back. Bagsy me drive.'

Gwen rolled her eyes with a smile as she climbed into the passenger seat and Rea "jumped" on the back seat. Craig turned the ignition key and drove off down the fairway as Gwen scanned the blob.

'It's hemispherical. Two metres across, one metre high. I'm not getting any readings from it at this range,' she announced. 'No heat. No movement.'

Craig parked up a few metres from the blob and turned off the ignition. They all climbed out and carefully approached.

'No biochemistry,' Craig said. 'No metabolism, enzymes, stuff like that.'

'There's something inside it though,' Gwen said. 'I'll just enhance the image . . . Looks like a fox.'

'How'd it get in there though? I mean, this things not alive,' Craig wondered out loud.

'No cellular membranes . . . Hang on. This thing's made of agar,' Gwen said in surprise.

'What, food additive agar?' Craig asked.

'Yeah. Seaweed derivative. Used as a gelling agent.'

'So what's it doing gelling here?'

'Good question. Ow!' Gwen had a sharp pain in her left upper arm. She rubbed her arm and found a metal dart stuck in it.

Craig looked up from his scanner. 'Gwen? What's up? Ow!' He felt a sting in his right thigh. When he looked down, there was a metal dart stuck in it.

'Ow!' Dave Rea exclaimed as he felt a pain over his shoulder blade.

All three felt their world start to spin. Craig had enough residual awareness to thump his fist on his pectoral muscle three times before his spinning world went black.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Jake Simmonds was working as dispatcher in the Despatch Office, monitoring agents in the field, and collating data from the Communications Hub. Suddenly, an alarm bonged for his attention and an alert screen turned red. A shiver ran down his spine. It was the one alarm that no dispatcher wanted to hear. He slid his chair across to look at the name on the screen. It said "Craig Rimmer".

The alarm sounded in the Standby Room as Jake changed the status to red. All the agents in the room stood up and looked at the status board with dread before hurrying into the Despatch Office. The alarm sounded on Rose's desk, although she had already seen the Standby Room go red. They ran across the Standby Room, weaving in between the couches and low tables, and entered the ominously quiet Despatch Office.

'Jake. Who is it?' Rose asked as she looked at the screens.

'Craig Rimmer. I've been hailing them but there's no response.'

'And Gwen?' Rose asked.

'Nothing. Torchwood Despatch to agent Rimmer. Do you copy?' You could have heard a pin drop as they waited for a response. 'Torchwood Despatch to agent O'Toole. Do you copy? Torchwood Despatch to agent Rimmer. Comms check, respond.'

Rose leaned forward and put a hand on Jake's shoulder. 'Contact the hangar. Tell them to open the roof and be ready to fly.'

She turned to the assembled agents. 'Search and rescue mission. Full combat gear. Stuart. You're Field Commander. Chrissie. I want you on Tech Support. Bring 'em home.'

The team hurried out of the office towards the bullet lift. As they passed the lockers, each agent grabbed their body armour pack, Heckler & Koch MP5SF, stun gun, and SA80 assault rifle.

In the lift, they performed a well practised drill of standing in a circle and fastening the armour of the person in front of them. The armour could be put on without help, but it was quicker to do it as a team. So, when the doors of the lift opened, they were fully kitted out and running for the door ramp of the airship.

"Irish" Stu, "Welsh" Pete, Clive "Bart", Danny "John Boy", André "The Giant", and Angel "Wings" strapped themselves into the side facing seats on the left of the cabin. Chrissie "Brains" Anderson strapped herself into the control chair facing the control desk and monitors on the right. She scooted the chair along the desk, powering up the various systems as she went.

['Hold onto your stomachs folks. This is going to be a no-frills ride,'] Captain Wallace announced over the intercom.

The airship surged upwards as the door ramp raised. They could just see the London skyline in the distance as the ship banked to almost ninety degrees, before accelerating forwards, causing the passengers to jerk towards the rear.

['ETA seven minutes. I may break some CAA regulations during this flight.']

'Break 'em,' Clive said, echoing the sentiments of everyone on board.

On the flight deck, Wallace was in contact with air traffic control. 'This is Torchwood Sky Hawk informing you that we will be flying at one thousand feet from Canary Wharf to Hemel Hempstead on a rescue mission. Over'

['Torchwood Sky Hawk. There is traffic ahead of you. Hold your position. Over']

'Negative control. This is not a request, this is a priority one call to let you know what is going to happen. Call your supervisor for advice. Over.'

There was a pause as the controller presumably spoke to his supervisor. ['Torchwood Sky Hawk. Proceed on your current heading. We will clear all traffic from the one thousand feet corridor. Over.']

'Thank you control.'

['Oh, and Sky Hawk . . . good luck with the rescue.']

'Thank you control. Torchwood Sky Hawk, out.'

In the cabin, Chrissie was performing long range scans. 'They're to the side of the fairway near some trees. I can't detect anyone else in the area. We should be able to approach straight down the fairway.'

['Standby, we're coming in fast and low,'] Wallace announced. As the door ramp started to descend, the cabin filled with the roar of the wind and the whine of the jet engines.

Angel leaned forwards to speak to Stuart. 'Stuart. I would like permission to disembark so that I can start treating the casualties.'

Stuart glanced down at her blossoming pregnancy and back into her determined eyes. 'You sure?'

Angel gave a single nod. He then looked to Chrissie for confirmation that there were no hostiles in the vicinity. Chrissie checked the scans again and nodded. Stuart looked at Angel as he considered her request. It felt like hours since Craigs transponder activated. Seconds could be vital.

['Starting our descent. Nine hundred feet . . . Eight hundred . . .']

Stuart nodded. 'Go. And Angel . . .' She turned back to look at him. 'Be careful.'

'Thank you. I will.' She kissed André on the lips and clipped down the faceplate of her helmet.

['Seven hundred . . . Six hundred . . .'] Angel ran out of the back of the airship.

Her body armour was designed so that her wings were free to flap outside of the Kevlar cuirass. She had them folded flat behind her as she plummeted head first towards the golf course. She gently opened one of her wings and banked towards her fallen comrades. She flew under the airship as it came in for it's approach. She extended her wings and flapped them once, twice and dropped onto one knee next to Gwen, scanner in hand.

['Fifty . . . Thirty . . . Twenty . . . Ten . . .'] At the last second, Wallace reversed the vectored thrust and instead of a heavy thud, there was a gentle thump as the wheels contacted the grass. ['Wheels down. GO. GO. GO!']

['Gwen has a pulse,'] Angel told them over the comms as they sprung the seat harnesses and ran for the ramp.

'YES!' Danny said with a fist pull.

'Oh thank God,' Chrissie said. 'Sky Hawk to Despatch. Did you hear that last transmission? Over'

['Chrissie. It's Rose. We heard. Thanks for that.']

The team of agents ran towards the casualties and Stuart started to issue orders. 'Welsh, Bart, John Boy. Defensive perimeter around the casualties and stay sharp. We may have just flown into a trap. André. You're a medic. Help Angel with the casualties.'

Angel had moved over to Craig and was checking his vital signs. André went over to David to check him over, when he saw the dart sticking out of the back of his shoulder. He looked over to Gwen and Craig and saw two more darts on the grass.

'Agent André Coulthard to Despatch. The casualties have been hit with darts. I'm presuming tranquillisers. The assailants probably concealed themselves in the trees. Over.'

['Copy that, André,'] Jake replied. ['Stuart. John has reviewed the uploaded scan data. The blob is made from agar. He thinks this is maybe an elaborate hoax to get Torchwood to investigate. Use crime scene protocols and preserve any forensic evidence. Over.]

'Roger that,' Stuart said. 'But first of all we need to medivac the casualties. John Boy, Bart. Stretcher detail.'

Danny and Clive ran back to the airship to collect three lightweight, plastic scoop stretchers, and came back with Chrissie and the co-pilot, who wanted to help. They carefully rolled Craig, Gwen and David onto the scoops and strapped them in. It was then that Stuart noticed something that was missing.

'Where are their scanners? And their tablets?' Stuart asked.

The team checked pockets and the undergrowth, but all they found was David's video camera.

'Agent Sinclair to Despatch. Craig and Gwen's tech is missing. It looks like this might have been a staged robbery. Over.'

['Copy that, Stu. Secure the scene. We have a recovery crew on the way. Let's get our people home and safe. Over,'] Jake replied.

'Just loading now. We'll be home soon. Out.'


	8. Security Breach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eyulf finds a mystery of his own, and Torchwood experiences a cyber attack.

**Chapter 8**

**Security Breach**

Haruto Suzuki sat at his workbench, examining the second of the dismantled Torchwood scanners. The first one had literally self destructed when he'd tried to access the huge, single microprocessor which controlled all the systems of the scanner. He'd had to bypass the security protocols which were built into the operating system to access the base code.

He'd quickly identified the high bandwidth modem which uploaded the scanner's data to a central server. There were high resolution cameras, along with a thermal imaging camera, high sensitivity microphone, and radar module. There were two other detectors which he assumed were a spectrometer and magnetometer. The other modules he had never seen before and had absolutely no idea what their function might be. It was fair to say that he had never seen anything like this in all his twenty one years.

Haruto was a genius. There was no denying it. At school in Tokyo, he was a high achiever in maths and physics, but was an introverted learner and tended to be a loner. None of the other pupils in the school could keep up with him, let alone in his class, and teachers struggled to feed his voracious intellect. This led to him becoming one of the youngest undergraduates at the University of Tokyo. And then it all changed when his parents moved to Great Britain. That's when he lost interest in academia.

He found a more interesting challenge in "examining" the security protocols of various institutions and establishments. He didn't like the term hacking, it was far too negative. He was then approached by a technology company who said they would pay him a considerable amount of money to disassemble a competitor's new consumer electronics product and replicate or improve on the design. He quickly realised that he could make a living doing this, and it amused him that he could work for two rival companies at the same time, selling them each other's technology.

The devices in front of him now though were what he really relished. Something completely new and innovative. It would take all of his considerable talents to fully deconstruct them. And his seven figure payment would set him up for the future. His computer screen came to life and indicated that he had an incoming call on his secure, virtual network. He clicked on "accept call".

[' **What have you learned about the scanner**?'] the gruff, electronically altered voice asked on the screen. The head and shoulders were in shadow, but the clothing was definitely a brown military uniform.

Haruto looked up from the dismantled handheld scanner, whose components were carefully laid out on the cluttered workbench. 'Well . . . The hardware is custom made by Cybus Industries. The various modules are cleverly designed to make them impossible to examine without destroying them.'

[' **As I suspected. Doctor Smith is no fool** ,'] the image on the screen said. [' **And what of the operating software**?']

'Ah, now, that is impressive. A high level scripting language I've not come across before . . . and that's saying something,' Haruto boasted. 'At first, I thought the character set was encrypted. But it turns out that the concentric circles and dashes are the actual character set, as though it's some sort of weird new language.'

'And . . ?' The voice asked impatiently.

'Well, obviously it's a goal-oriented programming language designed for the scanner components, but there's something else . . . Layers of apparently redundant code, although they're not redundant all the time.'

[' **I'm sure all of that is very interesting Haruto, but all I need to know is, can you use a scanner to access the Torchwood server**?']

'I ruined the first scanner trying to dismantle it,' he confessed. 'But the second one is still operational, and I should be able to use the data upload modem to get a Trojan through the firewall.' He paused and looked intently at the silhouette on the screen. 'But why do you want the personnel records of John and Rose Smith?'

[' **I'm paying you to investigate the Torchwood tech, not to investigate me**.']

Haruto held up his hands. 'Woah. Okay. You're the boss. Just asking is all . . . I'll get right on it.'

[' **Thank you. And what of the ear-comm units**?']

'Again, custom built by Cybus Industries. Digitally encrypted transceivers which are voice activated. On initialisation, it seems that you say your name and the unit uses voice recognition to lock it to the sound of your voice.'

[' **Can you break the encryption**?']

'I've got a neat little algorithm I designed myself which is running as we speak. Should have access in an hour or two.'

[' **Good. When you have both apps loaded on to the tablet, call the number I gave you and a courier will come and collect it**.']

Haruto was about to respond, but the screen went black. The conversation was obviously over.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

**The Smith's Residence.**

**Northumberland Place.**

**Notting Hill, London.**

**Wednesday 11** **th** **November, 2026**

John was in the kitchen of his Notting Hill home, wearing his usual brown, pinstripe suit. After their extended shower, he had managed to get his unruly hair into a sticky-uppy kind of order. Rose had already left for work, getting a ride from her friend Alice DiMaggio, the head of the Torchwood Psychology Department. With the help of their house robot, Donna, he was getting his children ready for their day, before doing the school run.

'Eyulf. Have you got your physics and maths books?' Donna asked as she accessed his timetable.

'Got them Donna. They're already in my backpack,' Eyulf replied. He was the eldest of the three children, and was now in his first year at secondary school.

'Juleshka, Jason. Your lunch boxes are ready. Don't forget to put them in your bags,' she said with a smile on her high resolution facial display.

'Thank you Donna,' they said as they picked up the plastic boxes and put them in their bags.

Juleshka, who was three years younger than Eyulf, had a box with mythical creatures from the Harry Potter films on it. Jason was the youngest of the children, being born fifteen months after his sister, and his lunch box was decorated with the characters from the popular, animated Space Patrol television program.

'See you later Donna,' the children called out as John shepherded them down the hall and out the door.

'Bye you lot,' Donna called back.

'Thanks Donna. Catch you later,' John said as he closed the door.

'See you all later,' EJ said, as he started to walk up the street towards Talbot Road.

'See you Son / EJ,' they replied, as the doors of the DeLorian started to rise.

EJ walked along Westbourne Park Passage with his friend Josh, who lived down the street from him, and Liam, who they met up with on the corner of St Stephen's Crescent before heading for the passage. The passage went between the houses, through a long covered bridge over the rail tracks, and under the Westway to the rear of the Westminster Academy. There were plenty of students in front and behind, as it was a popular route from the Artesian Village area.

When he got to the school, he sat with his friends at one of the picnic benches which were located at the back of the school, whilst they waited to go to the classroom for registration. Across the paved area on another bench, were a group of girls from their class. The lads were doing what prepubescent lads do . . . eyeing up the talent. There was one girl with flowing red locks, who had her head in a book.

'Who's she?' EJ asked his friend Liam, nodding at the girl. Liam was one of those extroverts who knew everyone in the class.

'Eh?' Liam asked, looking up from the comic book he was reading, and looking in the direction of the nod. 'Which one?' He could see a number of girls, but EJ only had eyes for one of them.

'The girl with red hair . . . Reading the book.'

'Oh, her. I think her name's Becky. I'd stop looking if I were you mate,' Liam told him.

'Why's that?'

'Well. "Romeo" Robson asked her out and she said she'd only go out with him if he could tell her the value of pi to eight decimal places.'

Paul Robson was the school Lothario. He was good looking, charming, confident, and had a "fit" body. He was a nice lad really, if a bit shallow and narcissistic.

'Only eight?' EJ said. 'That's not much of a challenge.'

Liam snorted a laugh. 'Apparently, he just looked at her blankly and she said, "six places then". When he continued to look baffled she asked him if he knew what pi was.'

'What did he say?'

'He said of course he did. "Apple or steak and kidney".'

EJ laughed with his friends, and then stood up. 'Back in a bit,' he told them before strolling over to the group of girls.

'Good book?' he asked the girl. Her friends giggled at his chat up line.

The girl looked up at him, and holding her fingers at the page she was reading, closed it so he could see the cover.

**Through Two Doors at Once:**

**The Elegant**

**Experiment That**

**Captures the**

**Enigma of**

**Our Quantum**

**Reality**

**by Anil Ananthaswamy.**

'Oh, you're into quantum physics,' EJ said with a big grin. 'Me too.'

'Really,' the girl replied in a tone that said she didn't believe a word of it.

'Yeah. Oh, my name's Eyulf by the way, and it's three point one four one, five nine two, six five.'

The girl screwed her face up in confusion. 'Excuse me?'

'Pi. The constant, not the pastry based food stuff. To eight decimal places.'

She looked suspiciously at his friends sitting across the way, and they all suddenly found their hands, fingers, comic book, and the bench top, very interesting to look at.

'Did they put you up to this . . ? Don't tell me you learnt pi to eight decimal places just to impress me.'

It was EJ's turn to look confused. He looked over his shoulder and saw where she was looking. 'What? No. Who memorises pi? I just use the Gregory-Leibniz series to calculate it.'

She gave him a disbelieving look. 'Are you telling me that you calculate pi in your head?'

He frowned. 'Welll. Technically, you're telling me. And I know the Gregory-Leibniz series isn't very efficient, but it's good for doing it in your head . . . Sorry, what did you say your name was?'

'I didn't.' She contemplated whether to tell him or not. He was kind of cute though. 'It's Becky.'

'Becky? Nice name, Becky . . . Is it short for something?' he said with a smile.

She raised her eyebrows. 'You are kidding?'

'Well, I don't like to presume. On the Leisure Hive of Argolis in the Mutter's Spiral, Becky is short for Beckmuller. And on Fiesta 95 in the Rim Worlds, it's short for Nebeckulazzar.'

She seriously wondered if this kid was on something. 'Rebecca. It's short for Rebecca.'

'ReeBeckA,' he repeated, playing with the word in his mouth as though he was tasting each syllable.

'And you said you were . . . Eyefull?'

'Yes I am,' he said with a cheeky grin which made her blush. 'But my name's Eyulf . . . Eyulf Smith. It's Norwegian for "lucky wolf".'

She couldn't stop herself from smiling. 'And are you either of those?'

'Well, yeah. Eyulf's my first name, and Smith's . . . Oh, I see. Yeah. I reckon I'm lucky I met you. But I can't remember ever howlin' at the moon.'

That made her laugh. She had an image in her head of him standing on a hilltop, head back, howling at the full moon. She could see his lips puckered into a pout as he howled. She wondered if he would be a good kisser . . . Where the hell had that thought come from?

'Maybe we could . . . I don't know,' Eyulf started, looking just like his father as he scratched the back of his head nervously. 'Maybe meet up in the lunch break and discuss cats in boxes.'

Becky laughed at the reference to Schrodinger. 'Yeah . . . Maybe we could. I'd like that . . . See you later, Eyefull Smith.'

'Really? Great. See you then, Reebecka.' He slowly swaggered back over to his friends, whilst Becky smiled, opened her book and continued her reading.

'Lucked out then?' Josh asked him with a cheeky grin.

'How many places did she want pi to this time?' Liam asked.

'I gave her eight places, but she thought you'd put me up to it.'

'Ah. Hard luck mate,' Liam said.

'Never mind,' EJ said, sitting on the bench. 'I'll tell her you were sympathetic when I meet up with her at lunch time.'

'What? Lunch time?' Josh said in open mouthed wonder.

'You sly old dog,' Liam said with a grin.

'Wolf,' EJ corrected him. 'Sly old wolf.' He looked at the comic book Liam was holding. 'What's that you're reading anyway?'

Liam showed him the cover which had the title, "Unbelievable Adventures". 'Oh, it's brilliant. It's only just come out. It's got some great stories in it. There's even a Torchwood adventure.'

'Ooh. Let's have a look,' EJ asked as he took the book off his friend. He found the Torchwood story, and saw drawings of his mother and father, which were very good. His mum was taking a call from Torchwood India about some missing agents in Australia.

'What the hell?' EJ asked out loud. Uncle Jack and his dad had decided that because of the time travel, and the TARDIS, this mission wouldn't make it to production.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

**Torchwood Medical Facility,**

**2nd Floor of Torchwood Tower.**

**Wednesday 11** **th** **November 2026.**

'How are you feeling Gwen?' Jack Harkness asked as she lay on a bed in the Torchwood hospital.

'Oh, I'm fine thank you Jack . . . Well, actually, I'm feeling a bit stupid, letting myself get tranqued like that.'

Jack smiled at her. 'Hey, anyone of us could have been ambushed like that.'

'I know. But it's like we didn't take the mission seriously enough.'

'Neither did we,' Rose told her, remembering her husband joking about the blob. 'As your supervisor, it's my responsibility to alert you to possible dangers. Even on a trivial assignment like this one.'

'But you couldn't have known that would happen. No one . . .' She saw Rose smiling at her with raised eyebrows and smiled herself as she rolled her eyes.

'You were gonna say "no one could",' Rose said.

Gwen nodded and saw "Ace" coming down the ward towards them. 'Hiya partner. You all right?'

'Yeah. You been discharged then?' Gwen asked.

'Yeah. You?' Craig replied.

'Yeah, just got to get dressed.'

'Right. Good,' Jack said. 'We'll leave you to it then. Go home you two, get some rest. Follow the doctor's orders and if they've given you the all clear we'll see you for start of shift in the morning.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Rose went back to Special Operations, and saw Chrissie in the Communications Hub. 'You Okay?'

'Yeah. It was a bit harrowing, seeing our people lying on the ground, not knowing if they were alive or dead,' Chrissie confessed.

Rose put a comforting hand on her shoulder. 'Yeah. And all just so somebody could steal our kit.'

'I know. Someone's desperate to get their hands on our tech.'

'Well. It is unique to Torchwood. You can't buy it anywhere,' Rose reminded her. 'Maybe it's like, I don't know, industrial espionage or somethin'.'

'Espionage . . . ESPIONAGE! Yes.' Chrissie sat at a keyboard.

'What is it Chrissie?' Rose asked. 'Do you think someone is hackin' the tech to get inside Torchwood.'

'That's right. Our handheld scanners upload their data to one of the servers. If they upload a trojan, they could use it to mimic a data request from a field agent and download data from a server to a remote node.' She typed in a string of commands, and data scrolled down the screen.

'Aha. I knew it. Someone has piggybacked a signal on the upload carrier,' Chrissie said with a grin.

'What's it doin'? Is it dangerous? Can you stop it?' Rose fired a series of questions at her.

Chrissie was working the problem. 'It's initiated a data request. It's streaming data as we speak.' Chrissie was clicking the mouse and typing commands. 'Let's see if we can trace it.'

'Shouldn't we block it?' Rose asked.

'No. We want to find them. And the data they're getting won't be what they were expecting,' Chrissie said with a grin.

Rose gave her a lopsided smile. 'Why? What have ya done?'

'A while back, John linked all the servers into a neural network, controlled by a heuristic algorithm. It monitors all traffic and requests, and when a bogus request comes in, it sends out data from conspiracy websites,' Chrissie explained.

Rose laughed. 'Oh that is brilliant.'

Chrissie made a few more mouse clicks and typed a few command strings. 'Whoever is doing this knows what they're doing. The data is being bounced around global servers to try and throw us off the scent. It's like they know how Torchwood operates.'

'Wha? Y'think it's an inside job?' Rose asked.

'No. Not current "inside". I think this is someone who knew the old Torchwood. The Torchwood before John arrived and bolstered the security. They've still got the security skills though,' Chrissie said. 'I've traced the data feed. It's being routed to a wifi hotspot in the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre.'

'Right. Let's get a team out there,' Rose said.

'No point,' Chrissie said, trying to dampen her enthusiasm. 'It's the third largest shopping centre in the country. Every day they have around one hundred thousand visitors. A needle in a haystack doesn't even cover it. By the time you get a team out there with mobile scanners, they'll be long gone.'

'Damn. That is clever,' Rose said. 'It's just the kind of thing we would do.'

'I'll tap into all the cameras and run the faces through the facial recognition software,' Chrissie said. 'You never know, we might get lucky. Although, if they know how we do things, they'll make sure they're well disguised.'

'Yeah,' Rose said with resignation in her voice. 'But we can't let 'em get away with this Chrissie. Attackin' our people, stealin' our tech. Who knows what they're gonna do next,'

'Well, we've got plenty of forensics from the scene. Let's see what that turns up,' she replied, as she turned back to the console and started typing.


	9. Looking For Answers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone is interested in John and Rose’s history, and Alice demonstrates her skills in profiling.

**Chapter 9**

**Looking For Answers**

**Meeting Room.**

**45** **th** **floor of Torchwood Tower.**

**Wednesday 11** **th** **November 2026.**

At an urgent meeting of heads of departments, Rose was giving an account of the morning's events.

'A group of businessmen staying at the Shendish Manor Hotel decided to have an early round of golf before they had to go to a seminar. They found a gelatinous mass on one of the fairways which spooked them. The hotel manager called the police, who in turn, called us.' she began. 'I assigned Craig Rimmer and Gwen O'Toole to investigate. At oh-nine fifty, Craig's emergency beacon activated and we were unable to raise them on comms. The airship was scrambled and a rescue mission was sent to investigate. The team were found to be unconscious and medivaced back to Torchwood.'

'Are they all right?' Alice DiMaggio, head of psychology asked.

'They're fine,' the emergency medicine consultant doctor Alex McKenzie told them with his soft, scottish accent. 'It was a fast acting, short term tranquiliser, the kind used by veterinary surgeons on primates. I've put the agents on sick leave for the rest of the day to recuperate.'

'Thank you for that Alex,' Jack said. 'So, what do we know about the gelatinous mass?'

John answered that one. 'Agar-agar. The gelling agent is an unbranched polysaccharide called agarose, obtained from the cell walls of some species of red algae. For commercial purposes, it is derived primarily from Gelidium amansii.'

'What, the food additive agar?' Alice asked.

'And a growth medium for microorganisms in laboratories,' John added. 'Only this agar had more than microorganisms in it.'

Jack looked at the report on his tablet. 'Oh yes. A fox.'

'That was clever,' Alice said. 'Jelly on its own would have just caused curiosity with no hint of threat. Put a dead animal in there from the environment, and you guarantee a visit from Torchwood.'

John nodded and continued. 'We're looking at the gel microscopically for any trace of who handled it, and when we get to the fox, it may have something to tell us about how it got there.'

Jack tapped some notes on his tablet. 'While we are waiting for that, we can do some good old fashioned detective work. Where do you buy half a ton of agar?'

'These people are clever,' Alice said. 'They will have realised that a bulk purchase would be traceable back to them.'

'Good point,' Jack said. 'So, we look for half a ton purchased over a number of weeks from a new catering company or laboratory . . . Chrissie, what can you tell us about the cyber attack?'

'It appears that whoever stole the tech knew how that tech worked, and knew what they wanted to do with it. A short while later, we detected a trojan virus which had slipped through the firewall via the handheld scanner data upload link.'

'Did they get anything important?' Jack asked.

'Well, initially they targeted specific personnel files from the archive along with mission logs.'

'Which ones?' John asked.

'Yours and Rose's,' Chrissie told him.

'I wonder what they were looking for?' John thought out loud.

'Me again,' Rose said. 'Maybe Jason was right and it's connected to someone in the logs that we've dealt with before,' Rose suggested.

'Good thought,' Jack agreed. 'We've already got Research going over the logs so hopefully they'll turn something up.' He turned to Chrissie. 'So, how close are we to finding who did this?'

'John and myself think that it's someone with an intimate knowledge of Torchwood. Maybe a former employee from the bad old days,' Chrissie said.

'That's going to make them hard to catch,' Jack said. 'They'll know how we will try to catch them.'

'Exactly,' Chrissie agreed. 'I've been running facial recognition software on everyone who's visited the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre. As expected, we've had no hits, but I did run a subroutine to flag up any faces that were obscured. That got us one hundred and two hits.'

'Maybe I should bring Lillie in,' Alice said. 'She likes doing "Where's Wally?"'

'It's similar to that,' Chrissie said. 'We've got people in dark glasses, hoodies, niqabs, hats, both wide brimmed and peaked, and facial makeup from street performers to Goths.'

'Maybe I can help you with that,' Alice told her. 'I should be able to profile the person we're looking for. They won't be skulking about with a laptop or tablet. They'll be hiding in plain sight as either a normal, unnoticeable person, or someone so noticeable that you wouldn't think it could possibly be them.'

'What if they've duped someone into collectin' the data for them,' Rose suggested. 'Y'know, a student or somethin'. Tellin' them it's part of an anti hackin' experiment or somethin' like that?'

Alice shook her head. 'I don't think so. This is all about ego. Whoever this is, they're playing with us, taunting us. The fox in the gel was them having a laugh. They will have wanted to collect the data themselves to prove that they are cleverer than we are.'

'Lets approach it from the other direction then. Alice, can profiling tell us why they wanted John and Rose's personnel files and mission logs?' Chrissie asked.

'Well. If John and Chrissie are correct and this is someone who used to work here, then it could be connected to the Cybermen attack back in twenty oh seven when John and Rose first came here ,' Alice theorised.

Jack turned to Frank Poole, the head of Torchwood security. 'Pull the files on all the members of the old regime. Find out who's still in prison, who's out on parole, who's a "reformed character".' Frank nodded and started tapping his tablet.

'I hope they haven't assembled some Cybermen parts and want our agent's brains to put in them,' Chrissie thought out loud.

'Not on my watch,' Andy said. 'I've seen that happen twice before. I'm not going to see it again.'

Alice smiled. 'I don't think this is about the technology. It feels personal. I think it's the opening move in a game of chess where we can't see the board, and we can't see the pieces.'

'Ooh. Invisible chess,' John said. 'I like it.'

Jack tapped his hands on the table. 'Okay. So we've got forensics working on the gel. Frank's team will investigate previous employees. Chrissie and Alice will work on the security footage. Feed back to me and I'll convene another meeting when we've got something to go on.'

The meeting disbanded and everyone started to return to their departments.

**Multimedia Laboratory.**

**6** **th** **Floor of Torchwood Tower.**

Chrissie was selecting the clips from the security footage of the shopping centre and displaying them on the large screen. The first batch were of a number of young people in hoodies. Some were just walking along with their friends, chatting, joking, or concentrating on their phones.

'Any one of those phones could have downloaded the stolen data and stored it on a micro SD card,' Chrissie said.

'Yes. But the body language is all wrong,' Alice told her. 'Why look at the phone whilst it's downloading. And that guy there look, he's acting shifty. He's either been shoplifting or is about to.'

'Hah! I'd forgotten how much fun people watching was. What about this street performer?' Chrissie said, as she brought up the next clip of a mime artist.

Alice watched the performer for a few minutes. 'It would make a good disguise, I agree. But their performance is too polished.'

They went through more video clips. 'Dark glasses and a headscarf inside a shopping mall?' Chrissie asked as she saw a woman walk down past the shop fronts.

'She's a mistress meeting with her married lover,' Alice said with a lopsided smile.

Chrissie did a double take at the screen. 'Really? That's amazing.'

'And that one there,' Alice said, pointing at a young woman in a pink tracksuit, dark glasses and pink baseball cap. 'Is the singer Alesha Dixon doing a bit of shopping incognito . . . And see this young woman in the designer dress with the Louis Vuitton handbag and immaculate hair?'

Chrissie looked at the woman she was pointing at. She was wearing a white, floral pattern dress, red rimmed sunglasses, white sun hat, and carrying a red clutch bag. 'Yeah. She looks classy. Actress? Heiress . . ? Suspect?'

'High class call girl on her way to see a client,' Alice said with a cheeky grin.

'No!' Chrissie said open mouthed in wonder. 'Bloody hell Alice. How do you do that?' she asked with obvious admiration.

'Training and experience. Just like you can spot a hookey bit of software on a computer, or a hacker on a network, I can spot a hookey person in a crowd . . . Like that-one-there,' Alice said, leaning forward for a closer look. 'Ooh. Now this one deserves a closer look,'

'Which one? The little old lady with the headscarf and shopping trolley, or the gentleman in the fedora with the briefcase?'

Alice pointed to a middle aged woman in a wide brimmed hat who was obviously pregnant. 'Her,' she said with certainty. 'She's the one we're looking for.'

'What? The pregnant one?'

'She's not pregnant. Out of all the people in the shopping centre, who would you least suspect of being a cyber terrorist? Track her movements, see if she goes to a car in the carpark.'

Chrissie sprang into action and started calling up all sorts of data on her terminal. 'I'm on it. Good work Alice. I had no idea you could do this sort of stuff.'

Alice gave her a proud smile. 'You learn a lot in a year at the Behavioural Science Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico. I did my gap year there when I was studying for my degree.'

'Wow!' is all Chrissie could say as she started to track their suspect.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

As Rose returned to the Special Operations Unit, she got a message from her eldest son about a comic book. He showed her the story through their mental link, and she wrote down the title of the story and the publication. She saw Amy and Craig waiting for work to break out.

'Legs? I've got a job for you and Craig.'

Rose gave her the details, and Amy went through to The Hub to find the address and telephone number of Incredibelieve Publishing. Camera Director David Rea followed her with his camera to follow the investigation.

Incredibelieve was a recently established publishing company offering creators complete freedom over their material, as well as the opportunity to own all the rights to their creations. Their first title, Unbelievable Adventures, was an anthology which featured a writer and artist called Alan Fabry. His story was about the popular Torchwood Institute, which had a regular "fly-on-the-wall" documentary on the television.

['Incredibelieve Publishing,'] a woman said as she answered the call.

'Oh. Hello. This is the Torchwood Institute. I'm Agent Amy Williams.'

['Torchwood? Seriously? You're "Legs"?'] the woman asked in disbelief.

Amy gave a single laugh. 'Yes. That's me. I was wondering if I could ask you for the details of one of the contributors to Unbelievable Adventures?'

['Er, which one?']

'Alan Fabry. He's doing a very good Torchwood story and we just wanted to ask him where he gets his inspiration from,' Amy told the woman.

['Oh. Right. He'll be thrilled. He's a big fan of the show.']

"He might not be as thrilled as you think", Amy thought to herself. 'That's great. If you could give me his address, I could turn up in person with Craig and surprise him.'

['We don't normally give out personal details of our contributors. But as it's you, and Alan is such a fan, I'm sure he won't mind.']

'Thank you. That's very kind.' Amy wrote down the address and went back to the Standby Room. 'Got it,' she told her field partner, Craig Owens, holding up her notebook.

'Well done partner. Let's go and pay him a visit then.'

**Alan Fabry's residence.**

**Reading, Berkshire.**

Craig knocked on the front door of the traditional semi detached house, in a typical suburban street. The door was opened by a man in his thirties, who had dark, wavy hair and beard, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. His eyes went wide when he saw who was standing on his doorstep.

'Oh my God. It's you two . . . Legs and Other Craig!'

Amy and Craig smiled. 'Yes, it's us,' Craig confirmed. 'And this is Dave. He's filming for the show.'

'I'm going to be on the show?'

'If your name's Alan Fabry, then yeah,' Amy said.

'Yes, yes. That's me. Please, come in. Come in,' he said enthusiastically, beckoning them in with a wave of his arm.

'Thank you,' they replied, and were ushered into the front room, which was tastefully decorated with modern furniture, with various framed prints on the walls. The artwork was modern and obviously produced by the current owner of the property.

'Can I get you anything?' Alan asked as they sat down.

'No. We're good thanks,' Amy said and took a comic book out of her pocket. 'To get straight to the point Alan, we'd like to ask you about the story in this comic.'

'Oh, "No Picnic At Hanging Rock". Yes. Do you like it? I thought the title was quite clever. It's going to be about mysterious disappearances at Hanging Rock, just like the original book. These will be caused by an alien though. I won't tell you any more or it'll spoil it if you want to read it.'

'Yes. Thank you. It's very good,' Craig informed him. 'Great drawings by the way.'

'Thank you. It's my first attempt at a Torchwood story,' Alan replied.

'Where did you get the idea for the plot?' Amy asked as innocently as she could.

'Well, I don't really know Alan told her with a frown. 'I have a blank sheet of paper, and then I just draw. The story comes with the images.'

'And this story involves agents from Torchwood India,' Craig confirmed.

'That's right. I thought I'd use them because they are nearer to Australia, although Doctor Smith will take a team from Torchwood One to help.'

'And have you had contact with anyone from India?' Craig asked.

Alan frowned. 'No . . . Is there a problem, because I contacted the institute and applied for permission to use the Torchwood name in the story.'

'No. The legal side of it is fine,' Amy informed him. 'But your story is straight out of the mission log.'

'What!? You mean this actually happened?'

'Yes. It did,' Craig replied. 'And Torchwood recently had a cyber attack where some mission logs were stolen.'

'What? And you think that was me?' Alan asked in disbelief.

'Either you, or you bought the information off someone else. I'm afraid you'll have to come back to Torchwood with us,' Craig told him. 'You have the right to remain silent. However, it may harm your defence if you fail to mention now, something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.'

'Am I under arrest? But I haven't done anything,' Alan protested.

'Just under caution,' Amy explained. 'It's procedure when we suspect a crime has been committed. If you haven't done anything, then that'll be fine. Don't worry, legal representation will be provided while you are interviewed.'

Craig smiled at him. 'And when we've finished the interview you can have a tour of the Tower to say thank you for your cooperation.'

'Oh. Well, that's not so bad then.'

**Interview Room.**

**Legal Department.**

**12** **th** **floor of Torchwood One.**

Alan Fabry was sitting on one side of a desk, with John and a male lawyer sitting on the other. Alan looked distinctly nervous as he had a sip of his coffee. John pointed between Alan and himself and looked at the legal representative.

'Do we have to sit like this? It makes me feel uncomfortable, let alone Alan here.' Without waiting for a reply, John picked up his chair and moved around the desk.

He sat down, grabbed his coffee cup from the other side of the desk and took a sip. 'There. That's better. Now we can have a nice, friendly chat.' He picked up the tablet PC and read the report. 'You told Amy and Craig that you start with a blank piece of paper and the stories just come to you.'

'That's right, yes. I haven't stolen anything. Honest,' Alan pleaded.

John grinned at him. 'Oh I know that. What I'm interested in is how the information gets in your head.'

'Doctor Smith. At the moment, we know no such thing,' the lawyer cautioned.

'You may not know. But I do,' John replied. He leaned forward in a conspiratorial fashion towards Alan. 'Lawyers! They don't trust anybody.'

'You believe me?' Alan asked.

'Yeah. For a start, you'd have to be pretty stupid to nick a load of mission logs and then put 'em in a comic book,' John reasoned.

'Oh yeah. I hadn't thought of that,' Alan said.

'Is that an admission of guilt,' John asked with a smile.

'No,no,no,' Alan said in a panic.

'Doctor Smith!' the lawyer protested.

'Only joking,' John said with a cheeky grin. He leaned forward in a conspiratorial fashion again. 'Lawyers. No sense of humour.' He straightened up. 'You don't look stupid to me. In fact, I bet you're brighter than the average joe. Have you always had creative urges?'

'Most of my life, yeah. But when I was twelve, I fell out of a tree and had a head injury. I spent a week in a coma, and when I woke up, the images for my art seemed to be clearer somehow.'

John looked as though he had just stumbled onto the answer. He looked across to the lawyer. 'If Alan gives his consent, is it alright if I examine his brain for any anomalies?'

'If he consents, yes,' the lawyer replied.

'Brilliant,' John said with a big grin. He turned to Alan. 'I think I can sort all of this out in two minutes if you'll allow me to look inside your mind. What d'you say?'

'Is it like an MRI scan or something? Alan asked. He was a fan of the show and knew Torchwood had some futuristic tech.

'No, nothing like that,' John said with a reassuring smile. 'It's just me. If you let me, I can look at your mind with mine. All I want you to do is draw something, anything.'

'Is it dangerous? Will it hurt?'

'Not a bit,' John said. 'Can I borrow your notebook and pen?' John asked the lawyer.

With pen in hand, Alan started to draw. John touched two fingers to each temple and mentally, just watched from a distance. He could see the pathways of images and narratives flowing through Alan's mind.

'A-ha! Found it!' John exclaimed, making them jump, and making Alan stop drawing.

'What have you found?' Alan asked.

'Divergent synaptic engrams,' John told him. 'Probably only a few of them active when you were born. Then you had that bump on your head and BAM! All of them firing off and giving you your psychic powers.'

'Psychic powers?' Alan queried with uncertainty. He'd seen how Doctor Smith could behave on the show.

'Yes, Alan me old mate. You're a medium,' John said with a laugh.

He happened to look down at what Alan had drawn. What he saw was a young, oriental man, sitting at a workbench, taking apart a Torchwood scanner. 'Who's this?' John asked suspiciously.

Alan looked at the drawing as though he hadn't seen it before. 'No idea. I do know that he'll be important in my next story though.'

'What as though? A hero or a villain? John asked with a thoughtful look. 'Can you draw a portrait of him?'

'I don't know. I can give it a try,' Alan replied. He picked up the pen and started to draw. John was hoping that the drawing would be detailed enough to identify the individual.


	10. A Familiar Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torchwood is alerted to a security breach at a certain Swiss college. John, Rose and Jack get excited when they find out who it is.

**Chapter 10**

**A Familiar Face**

Institut Le Rosey, commonly referred to as Le Rosey or simply Rosey, was a boarding school in Rolle, Switzerland. It was founded by Paul-Émile Carnal in 1880 on the site of the 14th-century Château du Rosey in the town of Rolle in the canton of Vaud. It was one of the oldest boarding schools in Switzerland, and one of the most expensive schools in the world.

An agency cleaner walked down the wood panelled corridor, wearing her overalls, and carrying her compartmentalized tray of cleaning tools. She was a short woman with shoulder length auburn hair, which was tied back into a ponytail.

She reached a door and put her ear to it to listen for anyone inside. It was evening, and she presumed that all the staff had left for the day. There were no sounds from inside the room, so she knocked.

'Bonjour? Réalisateur? Est-il pratique de nettoyer votre bureau maintenant?' (Hello? Director? Is it convenient to clean your office now?), she called out in french.

She opened the door and poked her head inside. The office was empty. She looked each way along the corridor to see if anyone would be walking by any time soon, and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She crossed the oak panelled room quickly and put her tray on the desk, lifting up a cleaning cloth to take out an electronic device. She removed the ethernet cable from the desktop computer and connected the device to the computer before plugging the ethernet cable into the device.

'Okay then Clyde, let's see if this little gadget works as advertised,' she said to herself as she switched on the computer.

The blue, white and gold emblem of the college appeared on the screen, with a password box below. The woman pressed the return key and rapidly changing characters appeared in the password box, each one becoming an asterix as the password was decrypted. Once the password was decrypted, the desktop appeared with a number of folders arranged down the left hand side. She started searching through the files, looking for one name in particular.

'Yes!' she exclaimed in a whisper as she found what she was looking for.

She put a thumb drive into a USB port and clicked on the file, dragging it into the removable drive icon. She glanced at the door as a progress bar creeped along. She had to go to all this trouble because although the student's computers were connected to the internet, the administration computers were all linked on a private intranet which was isolated from the outside world to prevent hackers from accessing the very private, student information.

What the agency cleaner didn't know though, was that the latter statement was only true if a certain condition remained inactive. When the condition was met, a remote, satellite modem would activate and stream data to a satellite in geostationary orbit, including a video stream from the computer's built in webcam.

When the file transfer had finished, she took out the thumb drive and shut down the computer. She disconnected the decrypter, put it back into her cleaning tray, and covered it with the cloth. She left the office and made her way to the college entrance.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

"Other Craig" Owens was working his four to midnight shift as despatcher, whilst his field partner, Amy "Legs" Williams, was on competency training in the Technical Support Department.

The Despatch Office was part of the Communications Department, often referred to as "The Hub". It looked like a television news studio, the sort that you see behind the presenters fronting the news. It had large media screens, multimedia mixing desks, and control consoles staffed by call handlers. It was the nerve centre of the Special Operations Unit, and incoming feeds were directed from this hub direct to the dispatch desk.

['Craig? I've got an alert pop up on my screen,'] one of the Hub staff reported in his headset.

'Okay Claire. Can you put it through to my screen please.'

['Transferring now.']

'Got it thanks.' Craig's screen told him that there had been an unauthorised access to a Torchwood monitored server, and that he should notify the director.

Jack Harkness was in his office on the top floor of One Canada Square, which looked out over the London skyline. It was six o'clock, and he had just completed a meeting with the institute's accountants. He was getting ready to go home when the phone on his desk buzzed for his attention.

'Jack Harkness.'

['Ah, you're still here Director. It's Craig on Dispatch. I've got an unauthorised access to a monitored server and it says to notify you.']

'OK Craig. Put it through up here please.'

['Transferring now.']

Jack sat back down in his swivel chair and looked at the information on his laptop.

**TORCHWOOD_**

**Secure_extranet_unauthorised_access.**

**Hub node: 2256870.**

**Location: Institut_Le_Rosey. Rolle. Switzerland.**

**File name: Rose_Marion_Tyler.**

'Ah,' Jack said to himself. Someone was investigating the history of his favourite girl. He clicked on the attached jpeg file, and his jaw dropped, before a large, open mouthed grin spread across his face. 'Oh, Doc and Wife; you are gonna love this.'

Jack reached for the phone and dialled the Technical Support Office.

['Chrissie Anderson.'] Chrissie was the head of the Technical Support Department.

'Brains. Glad I caught you before you left.'

['Oh, hi Jack. What can I do for you?']

'I need you to do a background check on the person in this video I'm sending to you. It can wait 'til morning.'

['No problem. If the night shift aren't too busy, I'll get them to make a start tonight.']

'Thanks Sweetheart. Speak to you in the morning.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

John and Rose walked across the block paved drive towards the large detached house. Tall privet hedges surrounded the property, hiding it from prying eyes and keeping it very private.

'Ooh, look. A "Retro" Nissan Figaro,' John said excitedly, as they walked past the emerald green car. 'I just knew she'd drive something like this.'

'Down boy,' Rose warned. 'Don't forget, she doesn't know us.'

'I know. But you saw the information Chrissie found . . . and the photos.'

'Yeah. But she's not the person WE know. That's all I'm sayin'.'

John smiled and squeezed her hand. 'I know.'

He rang the doorbell, and they heard footsteps approaching. The door opened, and a tall, thin man stood before them, taking them by surprise. They were expecting a short, dark haired woman.

'Hello. Can I help you?' the man said with a charming smile.

John scratched the back of his neck. 'Er, yes. Hopefully . . . We were looking for Mrs Dalton?'

'And who might you be?'

'Oh. Right,' John said and reached inside the jacket of his brown pinstripe suit and took out his I.D. 'Doctor John Smith, Torchwood Institute, and this is my wife Rose. She also works at the institute.'

Although Rose was in her uniform with the Torchwood name and logo above the left breast pocket, she held up her ID which was on a lanyard around her neck.

'That must be very convenient,' the man said with a sparkle of humour in his eyes. 'Peter Dalton,' he introduced himself before turning away from them and calling down the hallway. 'Sarah Jane. There are some people to see you.'

They heard a familiar voice from a room at the back of the house. 'Who is it dear?' A familiar woman stepped into the hallway and her face fell. 'Oh. It's you.'

John and Rose looked at each other with grins on their faces, and looked back at Sarah Jane. 'Yes. It's us,' John said cheerfully.

'I suppose you've come to arrest me,' Sarah Jane said in resignation.

John, Rose and Peter all raised their eyebrows in surprise. 'Arrest you?' they all asked together.

'Darling, what have you done?' Peter asked with concern.

'That's what we want to discuss,' Rose told them. 'Can we come in?'

'You'd better go through to the drawing room,' said Peter, indicating a door to their right. 'I'll make a pot of tea.'

'You seem to be quite a fan,' Rose said with a smile as they made themselves comfortable on the settee. 'I've not had one go to this much trouble before.'

'A fan of what?' Peter asked as he entered with a tea tray.

Sarah Jane gave a worried glance at her husband before explaining. 'Doctor Smith and his wife appear on a television documentary about the Torchwood Institute.'

'Really? I don't watch much television myself,' Peter told them as he put the tray on the low table in front of them.

'I don't think your wife does either,' John suggested. 'Too busy being a journalist, eh Sarah?' He gave her a cheeky wink.

Peter looked at his wife. 'Darling?'

Sarah Jane's shoulders sagged and she sighed. 'Oh, all right. Pour the tea and I'll explain.'

Peter poured the tea into the cups. 'Help yourself to milk and sugar, won't you.'

'Thank you,' Rose said with a smile.

Sarah Jane gave a weak smile as she accepted the cup and saucer from Peter. 'I was commissioned a few months ago to write a covert article about you for the Guardian,' she told John and Rose.

'By whom?' John asked.

'A woman called Carole Sinclair. She's on the editorial team. She told me that she had noticed some inconsistencies in your backgrounds.'

'Really? Rose asked suspiciously. 'Such as?'

'She wouldn't say. Said she wanted a fresh pair of eyes to look at the details without any preconceived ideas,' Sarah Jane told them.

'Hmm. I bet she did,' John said sarcastically. 'So you looked into our pasts . . . What did you find?'

'Well you John, are quite tricky to pin down.'

['Tell me about it,'] Rose thought in his head.

'The records say you were born in Galia, Greece. Your father, Ulyses Aetós, worked for the United Nations so you moved around a lot in your childhood. Your English mother Penelope, was a science teacher and apparently tutored you as you travelled around the world.'

'That's very good,' he said with an open mouthed grin. 'You have been busy.'

'When you lived in London, your father changed the family name by deed poll to Smith,' Sarah Jane continued.

'Yeah. He felt the "Greekness" of his name was holding him back,' John explained, air quoting "Greekness".

'You got a first with honours in physics at Oxford, followed by a masters and then a doctorate,' she continued. 'But that's where it gets odd.'

'Odd?' John asked.

'Yes odd. All the records are there. All your course work and the marks you achieved. But when I tracked down other cohorts, very few of them were sure that they remembered you.'

'Welll. Oxford's a big place. And I never really got into the social scene. I've always been shy and retiring,' John told her with a waggle of his eyebrows. Rose had to stifle a giggle. 'And what if this Carole Sinclair got to them first and paid them not to remember me?'

'But why would she do that?' Peter asked, playing devil's advocate.

'Why would she ask Sarah to investigate me in the first place?' John retorted.

'But I came across a similar thing when I looked at Rose's past,' Sarah Jane said. 'Neighbours on the Powell Estate say that they think they remember your mother being pregnant and pushing a pram, but none of them were certain on the details. And your neighbours in Hounslow where you grew up weren't certain they remembered your parents having a child.'

'I wouldn't say that was unusual,' Rose interrupted. 'It's been proven that memories can be unreliable, especially from childhood.'

'I saw your FaceBlog shout out to all your old classmates at The Heathlands School in Hounslow when you supposedly returned from Switzerland,' Sarah Jane told her. 'But when I spoke to the people who would have been those classmates, some of them thought they remembered you, but that was probably so they could brag about having been a school friend of the famous Rose Tyler.'

'But what about Jay Selby?' Rose asked her. 'He was my first crush when I was fourteen.'

'Did you snog him?' John teased, wanting to add some credibility to the cover story. Rose really had known a Jay Selby in the old universe. He was the brother of one of her best friends, Keisha.

Rose blushed. 'None of your business. It was before we met.'

John leaned towards Peter in a conspiratorial fashion. 'She snogged him.'

'He was very helpful,' Sarah Jane told them. 'Remembered you perfectly. It was almost as if he were reading from a script.'

'Did he say whether he snogged her?' John asked.

'I didn't ask,' Sarah Jane replied with the hint of a smile. Even though she knew she was in trouble, there was something about this couple which put her at her ease.

'I remember the first time I met Rose. Couldn't get her out of my head,' said John, remembering the basement in Henrick's. 'She's difficult to forget.'

'Yes,' Sarah Jane said. 'You first met in a nightclub in Rolle, Switzerland. It's funny that police officers who were on duty that night don't remember being called to a disturbance at the nightclub, although it's recorded in the duty log.'

'Blimey. She is good,' Rose said to John.

'She is, isn't she. I'd expect nothing less from Sarah Jane Smith,' John said with pride.

'That was my maiden name,' Sarah Jane informed him.

'Of course it was,' John said with a grin. 'So, you do realise that all of this comes under the official secrets act? You won't be allowed to publish your article.'

'But if I don't, Carole Sinclair will just get someone else to investigate and publish,' Sarah Jane countered.

'She's got a point, John,' said Rose.

'And we'd have to do this all over again,' John groaned. 'That's going to get old very fast. There's only one thing for it . . . We'll have to take her to Torchwood.'

Sarah Jane grabbed Peter's hand. 'What are you going to do? Wipe my memory or something?'

'What?!' John and Rose looked horrified that she'd even thought it.

John screwed his face up. 'Nah. We don't do stuff like that. We're going to show you what you've been looking for.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Jack Harkness stood as he saw John, Rose, and Sarah Jane approach his glass fronted office, and moved from behind the desk to open the door for them.

'Sarah Jane Sm . . . Dalton,' he said, holding out his hand. 'May I say Ma'am, looking good as ever. Please, come in and have a seat.'

'Woah. Hold on a moment,' Sarah Jane said as she shook Jack's hand. 'What's going on?'

'He's flirting with you,' John told her.

'You'll get used to it,' Rose added.

'No. I mean you people. You're all acting and talking as though you know me.'

'Well, we do,' John told her. 'It's just that you don't know us.'

Rose took her arm and guided her to the comfy chairs opposite Jack's desk which were against the wall. She sat her down and held her hand as she tried to explain.

'He's still not any good at explainin' this stuff. Intellect the size of a planet an' he can't understand why people don't know what he's on about.'

'No kidding,' Sarah Jane replied.

Rose snorted a laugh. Oh she was SO Sarah Jane. 'So it's like . . . I don't know . . . like science fiction, when people end up in a different universe which looks the same, but it isn't.'

Sarah Jane frowned.

'I used to be so much better at explainin' than this.'

Jack gave her his perfect grin. 'You've been hanging around with the Doc for too long.'

John was about to protest, but then thought about it. Jack was probably right. Rose was continually exposed to psycho-osmotic learning.

Jack continued. 'Sarah Jane. Have you seen the film "Sliding Doors"?'

Sarah Jane was having trouble keeping up with the twists and turns of the conversation. 'Er, yes. Gwynneth Paltrow and John Hannah.'

John frowned. 'Sliding doors?'

But Rose spotted the analogy. 'Oh Jack, that's brilliant. Yes, sliding doors. Imagine the two storylines existing side by side. One in this world,' she explained, putting her left palm out. 'And one in another.' She put her right palm out so they were side by side. 'Both stories almost identical, but with subtle differences.'

John raised his eyebrows. 'Oh . . . Sliding doors . . . Brilliant.'

'Are you trying to tell me that in another story, I've met you and you know me?' Sarah Jane asked.

John looked at her in open mouthed wonder. 'Oh Sarah Jane. It might be a different universe, but it's the same, brilliant mind.'

'I know it sounds crazy and impossible,' Rose said as sincerely as she could. 'But it's true. We knew another you in the universe where we came from.'

'I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous,' Sarah Jane told them, her analytical mind not accepting the wild, unsubstantiated claims. 'Look, why don't you just tell me how much trouble I'm in, read me my rights, and call my lawyer.'

'If you're sure?' Jack said, picking up a folder off his desk. 'There is the unauthorised access of a server in the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland.'

Rose frowned at him. 'Jack?'

'The computer misuse act 1990. She's looking at either two years in prison or a hefty fine.'

'But Jack. It's Sarah Jane,' John protested.

'But not our Sarah Jane,' he reminded them, giving Sarah Jane a serious look. He then broke into another grin. 'However, someone has to report the crime, and the director, Christophe is a real sweetheart. Not to mention his institute gets a regular donation for cooperating with Torchwood.'

'So she's in the clear?' Rose asked.

'Unless curiosity is a crime. And if it was, your husband would have been locked up years ago and the key thrown away.'

John laughed and slapped Jack on the back. 'Nice one Jack.' He glanced at a pop up on Jack's laptop screen, before wheeling one of the office chairs across the office to sit facing Sarah Jane. 'So, Sarah. That's it. You can walk out of that door, publish your story and cause us all sorts of bother, and then walk away.'

Sarah Jane stood up.

'Orrrr,' John continued. 'You could use that brilliant, inquisitive mind of yours and ask yourself why a non existent feature editor would ask you to do that.'

'Non existent?' Sarah Jane asked.

'While you were getting your guest pass at reception, I asked our Research Department to do a background check on Carole Sinclair.' He wheeled back to Jack's desk and turned the laptop screen so they could see it. 'This popped up a moment ago.'

On the screen they could see a complete list of all employees, freelance employees, and subcontractors who worked at the Guardian newspaper. In the search pane was the name "Carole Sinclair - Editorial Team".

'So she does work at the Guardian,' Sarah Jane said.

'Does she?' John asked her. 'Look closer.'

They all leaned in closer to scrutinise the data.

'Oh, I see it,' Rose said, picking up John's inner Donna.

'See what?' Jack asked.

Rose beamed a "pleased with herself" smile. 'Look at the HR section . . . She hasn't drawn a salary. She's not had a day off sick, and she's not applied for any annual leave.'

Sarah Jane's mouth fell open. 'So she's on the list of personnel, but doesn't work there.'

John nodded. 'Yep. The devil's in the detail. Most people would just look for the name and stop when they found it. Our Research Department don't stop until they know what colour underwear they're wearing.'

Sarah Jane looked at John and Rose in amazement. 'And is that what they did for you?'

'Pretty much, yeah,' Rose replied. 'Security contacted the Institut Le Rosey and put a false record there for me. Alice's team in Psychology went and "mingled" with people on the Powell Estate, in Hounslow, and my supposed classmates from The Heathlands School. They introduced the idea that I had grown up there so that they would form false memories. Oh, and they put a post hypnotic suggestion in Jay Selby's head that I'd had a crush on him.'

'Did they tell him you snogged him?' John asked with a cheeky smile.

'Shut up,' Rose said playfully.

'So where did you grow up?' Sarah Jane asked them.

'I grew up on the Powell Estate in Peckham,' Rose said. 'But in a different story to this one.'

'And I grew up on a planet called Gallifrey,' John told her.

'A planet . . ? So it's sliding doors again?' Sarah Jane asked.

John had an idea, and hoped that Sarah Jane had investigated the story. 'Do you remember 2007 when the Cybermen disappeared from all the factories?'

'Yes. No one could work out where they had gone,' Sarah Jane remembered. 'And they were never seen again.'

'Not in this universe,' John said. 'They escaped to ours. I managed to expel them into the void between the universes, but in the process, Rose got stuck here with her mum.'

'That's when you came back from Switzerland,' Sarah Jane realised. 'Or at least that's what the records say.'

Disappearing Cybermen was a fact that Sarah Jane could accept. She had tried to find them. She had spoken to experts, and none of them could explain it. They had literally disappeared into thin air.

'So . . . So you really do come from another universe?'

'Yes we do,' John said with sincerity. 'And when you trust me enough, I'll show you.'


	11. Prime Suspect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clive Finch’s conspiracy theory is validated by the Research Department, and it could spell trouble for Torchwood.

**Chapter 11**

**Prime Suspect**

John and Rose had taken Sarah Jane to the restaurant on the ground floor for lunch, and afterwards, John had stayed with Sarah to get as many details as he could about the mysterious Carole Sinclair. Rose returned to her office in Special Operations, and found some items waiting for her on her desk. A small cardboard box from the armoury, and a box file.

She opened the cardboard box, and found a Heckler & Koch HK MP5 in an evidence bag with André's name on it. She smiled and reached for her tablet PC to find the report on the fatal shooting. She looked through the glass fronted office and saw André and Angel sitting together on one of the comfy sofas.

'André. The police have returned your sidearm, and they've reviewed all of the camera footage. The report concludes that your actions were not only prudent, but probably saved numerous civilians from serious injury or death.'

'That is a relief,' André admitted. 'Do we know how ze woman iz who woz shot?'

'Oh. Hang on.' Rose searched the report. 'She went to surgery and had a bullet removed from her upper chest. It missed the major blood vessels thankfully. Apparently the surgeon was "very impressed with the quality of the first aid administered at the scene",' Rose read. 'Blood loss was minimal and made reinflating her lung much easier. So well done that man . . . And how are you?'

André knew what she was really asking. He held Angel's hand as he replied. 'The counsellor is very good. I am coming to terms with it. Thank you for asking Rose. It means a lot.'

Rose beamed a smile. 'No problem. Just remember that we're all here for you.'

She went back to her office, sat at her desk and opened the lid of the box file. It was Clive Finch's conspiracy files, and there was a report on the top of the papers. She started reading the report of the mysterious disappearance of Judge Peter Jeffries from his boat in the Solent. The names of the twelve members of the jury and some of their family members who had tragically died in various accidents. There was another name that Clive hadn't mentioned. Selena Munroe, prosecuting lawyer, who had died in a road traffic collision recently.

All the names were linked to a trial which took place eighteen years previously. Rose felt her stomach drop when she saw the name of the defendant.

['Rose? What's wrong?'] John asked in her mind. He'd felt her shock.

['Meet me in Jack's office. We've got a BIG problem.']

['Why? What's wrong?']

['The judge, the jury, and the prosecutor in this report. They were all involved with the trial of Yvonne Hartman!']

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**Broadfell Prison,**

**London.**

**Six months previously.**

Yvonne Hartman was sitting at her desk in her not-too-uncomfortable cell in Broadfell Women's Prison. Today she would be given the result of her parole application after several weeks of hearings, and she was wondering if she had done enough over the years to earn her freedom. She was thinking back to her "glory days" as director of the Torchwood Institute. She had been loyal to her queen, and had kept the royal secret that they were werewolves. She had also been responsible for protecting the British Isles from the scum of the universe. And what thanks did she get? A life sentence is what.

"Take a deep breath", she thought to herself. That was history now, and she had come to terms with the injustice of it. Of course, it was all John Lumic's fault. Him and his Cybermen.

She remembered it was late evening when she got the call from Special Operations Despatch telling her that they were on red alert and that the president had been killed at Tyler Mansion. Green Watch had been sent to Battersea Power Station to try and save thousands of civilians who were walking to their death. She also remembered the terrible news that Green Watch had been wiped out by what they later found out were Cybermen.

The following day, she had been called to a COBRA meeting to find out who the mysterious team were who defeated Lumic and his robots. Pete Tyler was there, she recalled. He'd been arrested and questioned under caution about his involvement with John Lumic. Harriet Jones, the former vice president had asked her to work with him to see if they could locate someone called the Doctor and his team.

And they'd found one of them almost straight away. Mickey Smith. Affiliated to the Preachers and heading for France. That was when the United Nations ruled that the Cybermen should be sealed within the factories until they decided what should be done with them. She'd even managed to recruit Mickey Smith, along with his Preacher colleague, Jake Simmonds.

And as she had told the judge in the secret court session, her intentions were purely philanthropic in trying to dismantle the half dozen Cybermen she had appropriated to try and help the poor wretches trapped inside. She had nothing to do with the five million who had suddenly disappeared from the universe.

The prosecution had claimed that she was trying to create an army which would be able to take on any aliens who thought that they could just come and invade the Earth on a whim. Her defence lawyer had strongly refuted the claim as pure speculation, but did suggest that a parliamentary subcommittee should look into the feasibility of such an army.

The first betrayal was when Pete Tyler had been called to give evidence for the prosecution. Of course, he was under oath and had to tell the truth about the anomaly they were studying at the Tower. He also had to tell the truth about the Cybermen that had reactivated themselves, opened the anomaly, and taken five million Cybermen with them into another dimension.

And then another betrayal. The head of the Special Operations Unit had been called to give evidence. She'd given Captain McNab carte blanche to run his own department, being a Special Forces soldier, he would know how best to organise it. She conceded now that it may have been a mistake.

Andy McNab ran a tight ship. He kept meticulous records, all his operatives held individual firearms licences, and he made sure every mission had a thorough debrief. So, when it came to giving evidence, McNab was a gift for the prosecution, as every question answered, had written evidence to back it up. The Special Operations Unit was not part of the Institute's paramilitary, armed security force. It was more akin to Interpol, where it investigated alien incursions, and only used force when absolutely necessary.

So it was inevitable when the judge found in the prosecution's favour and she was found guilty of treason; managing a group of paramilitary mercenaries, contrary to the Private Security Industries Act 2001; false imprisonment; conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, and conspiracy to commit murder. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, and referred for psychiatric assessment and treatment.

And then, when she had been in prison for nearly three years, came the final betrayal. It turned out that the young woman who had been part of the mystery team who defeated Lumic, was only Pete Tyler's daughter, kept secret and out of the limelight all that time. And then, three years after that, she married the UNIT scientist come secret agent who had led that mysterious team. The Doctor, John Smith.

Peter Tyler had known who they were all along!

Yvonne was brought out of her reflections by the warder who had come to escort her to the governor's office.

'Oh, hello Helen. Are they ready?' Yvonne said with her charming smile. Knowing people's names was so important. It was all about people skills. Get on first name terms with the warders and your time in prison would be so much easier. That and putting the fear of god up the self appointed leader of the wing.

'Yes, the board has convened. I've been asked to take you there,' Helen told her.

Yvonne took a deep breath. 'Well, we'd better go then. I don't want to keep them waiting. Fingers crossed, this could be my lucky day.'

Helen smiled at her. 'If anyone deserves to be paroled, it's you. You've worked so hard with the rehabilitation.'

Helen led her through the various locked gates, and into a hallway which contained the administrative offices of the prison. She stopped at a dark wooden door with a name plate on it which read, "Mr. James Taylor. Governor". She knocked and waited.

'Come in,' a voice called out.

Helen opened the door, and held it open for Yvonne to go in.

'Thank you Helen,' Yvonne said with a charming smile as she walked past her into the governor's office.

She saw the disapproving look on Helen's face and realised that she should be more formal in front of the governor. 'Oh, sorry. Thank you Misses Wilkins.'

Helen gave her a lopsided smile and closed the door as she went out.

'Hello Yvonne. Please have a seat,' the governor said, indicating the seat in front of the long desk.

'Thank you Mister Taylor,' Yvonne said, as she sat in the indicated chair.

Taylor smiled and opened the manilla folder on the desk in front of him. He was flanked by members of the parole board; a psychiatrist, a criminologist, a senior officer from UNIT, a parliamentary representative from the Home Office, and a social worker.

'Now, Yvonne,' Taylor started. 'Over the last few weeks, we've reviewed your record at length.' Yvonne raised a quizzical eyebrow. 'And we can see that you have made good use of your time while you've been with us.'

'Well I've always been keen to take advantage of opportunities presented to me. It would have been rude not to accept the prison's kind offer of advancement,' Yvonne replied with honey dripping sincerity.

'Yes. Quite so,' Taylor agreed. 'There was the usual process of "settling in", which I'm afraid goes with the territory, and I'm sorry you had to go through that unofficial initiation. However, you seemed to have weathered it a lot better than most, and quickly gained the respect of the other inmates.'

"Attempts at bullying and intimidation", Yvonne thought to herself about the "settling in" comment. 'Yes Mister Taylor. I found my managerial experience and people skills were a great help to me.'

What Taylor didn't know was that when Yvonne realised she would be going to prison, she had made preparations for her incarceration so that it would be as comfortable as possible. Her Personal Assistant at Torchwood, Sebastian, had remained loyal to her and had been acquitted of all charges brought against him. He received a monthly wage from her substantial offshore accounts, which had remained hidden from prying eyes.

Her managerial experience allowed her to formulate a plan to first take control of the wing she was in, and then the whole prison. Her people skills were used on her then cell mate Carole, getting her to take Yvonne to the person who considered themselves to "rule the roost".

'Carole tells me that you're queen bee around here, Sheila,' Yvonne had said.

'That's right. And you're the newbie posh bint who's just come in,' Sheila had replied, giving Yvonne a look up and down. 'What're yer in for?'

Yvonne had given her a charming smile. 'A number of things, treason being the one that got me the longest sentence.'

'Treason?' Sheila had said with a laugh. 'I don't think we've had a traitor in 'ere before.

'And you haven't got one now,' Yvonne had replied. 'It was a trumped up charge to cover the fact that I had been defending the Earth from alien invasion. Because of the official secrets act, I was tried in a secret session.'

Sheila had been laughing as Yvonne finished. 'Alien invasion. I'd keep that shit to yerself in here love, or you'll get a hidin' fer sure.'

'And that is why I have come to see you,' Yvonne had explained. 'I know all about this "beat up the new girl" nonsense, and to be honest, I haven't got the time to waste on it. I'm going to be far too busy.'

'Defendin' the Earth I suppose,' Sheila had said sarcastically. 'And I should help you why?'

'To explain that, we need to go to the pay phones,' Yvonne had said cryptically. She had seen that Sheila was sceptical. 'Humour me. And if you're not convinced, you can, how did you put it, "give me a hidin'".'

At the payphone, Yvonne had explained that the calls were probably monitored, so her "friend" Sebastian would talk to her as though she was an old acquaintance.

'Sebastian. Good to talk to you again. I have an old friend of yours here, Sheila Murphy,' Yvonne had started. She heard fingers tapping a computer keyboard.

['Yes, Sheila. Put her on,'] Sebastian had replied.

Yvonne had handed over the phone to Sheila. 'Hello?'

['Sheila. Nice to hear from you. How's that husband of yours, Brian? Still working in the warehouse is he?'] Sebastian had asked.

Sheila had cast a worried glance at Yvonne, who just smiled back sweetly. 'Yeah. That's right.'

Sebastian had gathered more information and continued. ['And the kids. It's been ages since I've seen them. They must be all grown up now. Tyler must be what, thirteen now. And Courtney, she'll be at Walthamstow comprehensive as well now, having turned eleven.']

'Yeah. That's right an' all,' Sheila had agreed.

['Well, it's been nice talking to you again Sheila. We must get together when you get out. Can you put Yvonne back on?']

Sheila had handed the phone over, knowing exactly what this posh bint was hinting at.

'We've got to go now Sebastian, but I'll call again soon,' Yvonne had said and ended the call. She had turned to Sheila. 'Oh, I was also convicted of managing a group of paramilitary mercenaries, contrary to the Private Security Industries Act 2001 . . . I'd give it ten minutes, and then phone home. Your husband might want to look out of the window.'

Back in her cell, Yvonne had received a visit from Sheila, whose husband had seen a black Range Rover parked outside their house with some army types inside, wearing camouflage fatigues. Sheila had told her that she would let everyone know that they weren't to mess with Yvonne Hartman.

Of course, there had been one who thought they knew better. Yvonne had received a bloody nose and bruised cheek in the toilet block one evening before lockdown, and she suspected that Sheila had put someone up to it. After her cell mate Carole had given her the name of her assailant, she sat at the small table and composed a telephone conversation she would have with Sebastian. The conversation would contain a cypher which would give Sebastian the information he needed to take action.

A day later, a rumour came through the grapevine that Yvonne's assailant's entire family had disappeared. After an apology in a full dining hall, the family mysteriously reappeared one hundred miles away from their home, unharmed. After that, another rumour circulated on the grapevine that you didn't mess with the posh bint. No really, you didn't!

The governor brought her out of her memories by continuing. 'Yes. And that experience, and those skills also seem to have helped the other inmates too. Let's see. Reading clubs, support groups, group therapy sessions. All very community spirited.'

The psychiatrist spoke up. 'Part of Yvonne's rehabilitation was to get her to empathise with other people so that she could appreciate the implications of her actions.'

'It seems to be very effective,' Taylor noted.

'It has been very enlightening for me,' Yvonne agreed. 'It's something I would like to pursue when I have served my time.'

'I'm sure I could help you with that,' the woman from social services told her.

'That is very kind of you. Thank you,' Yvonne replied.

'Well, as you know Yvonne, prison isn't just about punishing offenders. It's about rehabilitating people so that they don't reoffend,' Taylor said. 'And I think we all agree that your rehabilitation has been very successful.'

Everyone at the table nodded in agreement. 'So, it only leaves me to say "well done" Yvonne. We support your application for parole, and you will be released on licence forthwith.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

John and Rose were sitting in the swivel chairs in front of Jack's desk as he looked at the report from the Research Department.

'All these people were involved with Yvonne Hartman's prosecution?' Jack asked. He'd never met Yvonne Hartman personally, but from John and Rose's recollections of her from the old universe, she was a nasty piece of work.

'That's what Research says,' John confirmed.

Jack picked up his phone and dialled the Chief Archivist in the Research Department. 'Josie. It's Jack. I want you to get me everything you've got on Yvonne Hartman and ping it to me please.' There was a brief pause. 'Yes. That's her . . . Okay. Thanks.'

A few minutes later, the file on Yvonne Hartman was on Jack's computer. 'Hmm. That's interesting.'

'What?' Rose asked. 'What have y'found?'

'She was released from Broadfell six months ago on licence,' Jack read. 'How did we not hear about this?'

'They released a sociopath back into society?' John asked in disbelief.

'Apparently she's a reformed character.' Jack read on. 'She helped to set up support groups, book clubs, self education forums. Saw the error of her ways and turned her life around.'

'I'll believe that when I see it,' John scoffed. 'She was ready to have Rose shot on a whim without batting an eyelid. A bit harsh for trespassing.'

'Oh yeah. I remember that. I was in the Sphere Room with Mickey an' Doctor Singh,' Rose remembered.

'Well, she's convinced the parole board anyway,' Jack said. 'And she's got a cast iron alibi for all these deaths, because she was still inside when they died.'

'She must have had help on the outside then,' Rose reasoned. 'Because this has got revenge written all over it.'

'Let's see,' Jack said, scrolling down through the information. 'Ah. Here we are. Sebastian Carter. Personal Assistant to Yvonne. Prison phone records show that she was in contact with him on a regular basis.'

'He must have been her "man in Havana". Looking after her affairs until she was released,' John said.

'Yeah. Rose, get a couple of agents to pay him a visit. I'll send his details to your office,' Jack instructed. He scrolled down further and stopped. 'Oh.'

''What?' Rose asked.

'If Yvonne Hartman was responsible for those deaths, we'll never know.'

John and Rose looked at each other and back at Jack. 'Why?'

'One month after being released from prison, she was killed in a road traffic collision.'

'Damn!' John exclaimed.


	12. Kidnap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now things start to get nasty as Rose’s brother gets dragged into the conspiracy.

**Chapter 12**

**Kidnap**

Tony Tyler walked through the gates of the independent Highgate School with his friends, and headed up the narrow Southwood Lane for the mile long walk home. A couple of his friends peeled off and went up Jackson Lane, whilst the rest of them carried on.

The lane became tree lined and narrower, and there was only one footpath on the right hand side of the road. At the junction with Archway Road, more of his friends branched off left and right as they used the traffic lights to cross the busy main road. As he walked past his father's local pub, The Woodman, there was just him and his best friend Jamie.

They turned right into Wood Lane, and in a few hundred yards, they came to Jamie's house on the right. After saying "see you tomorrow", Tony continued for what would be the last quarter of a mile to the mansion.

He passed the last of the houses in Wood Lane before it became the leafy Queenswood Road. Opposite the end house, there was a British Telecoms van parked half on the footpath, with an engineer working on the green distribution box which stood upright on the footpath, away from the road.

As Tony manoeuvred between the van and the engineer, the engineer stood, grabbed him under the armpits and threw him through the open side door, where he landed on a crash mat. The man jumped in behind him and slid the door shut. The van drove off, and before Tony could make sense of what had just happened, he felt an aerosol being sprayed in his face.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

**Special Operations Briefing Room.**

**Torchwood Tower.**

Jack Harkness had called the heads of departments together to review any progress that had been made over the last few days after Rose's attempted abduction, and the ambush on the golf course. It was after four in the afternoon, and Rose had already handed over the watch to White Watch so she could attend with John.

'Just to bring everyone up to speed. One of our regulars, Clive Finch has supplied us with information which has led us to what looks like revenge killings of all the people involved in Yvonne Hartman's trial.'

There were concerned murmurs around the room.

'Could she be the one responsible for the recent attacks on our people?' Andy McNab asked.

'She would have been at the top of my list, yes,' Jack replied. 'Released on licence in June, she would have had plenty of time to put an operation together. However, one week after being released, she was killed in a car accident.'

'I hope someone stuck a pin in her to make sure,' Andy said without any humour.

'Did they confirm her identity with DNA?' Chrissie Anderson asked.

'That wasn't possible,' Jack told her. 'A stolen car ran her off the road and across a filling station forecourt. She collided with a pump and it exploded. The intensity of the blaze completely incinerated any evidence.'

'Convenient,' Andy said.

'What about dental records,' Alice DiMaggio asked.

'Inconclusive. Although from what they recovered, there was a reasonable match.'

'Knowing that woman, she'd have pulled her own teeth out to make us think it was her,' Andy told them.

'It's certainly something to consider,' Jack said. 'I didn't know the woman, but from all accounts, she was ruthless. We're investigating her Personal Assistant, Sebastian Carter, who she was in regular contact with when she was inside . . . Now. Let's start with the ambush on the golf course. What do we know?'

'We have some results from the fox in the gel,' the head of forensics offered.

'Okay Carl. Go ahead,' Jack said.

'We found that it had been shot. A single, nine millimetre round to the head. The rifling marks point to a Browning. We are checking with the Met to see if they have a match to any previous crimes.'

Carl scrolled down his tablet screen. 'Although the fox was found in a rural area, there was no local flora or pollen in it's fur, indicating that it was an urban fox, probably killed in the area where it was encased in gel.'

'Can we tell where that was?' John asked.

'Interestingly enough, when we examined the contents of the stomach, we found some fish,' Carl informed them.

'So someone was feeding it,' Rose said.

'Or it could have stolen it out of a cat's dish,' Carl added. 'What is interesting though, is we found traces of beer.'

'Beer?' John asked. 'It drank beer?'

'So it would seem,' Carl said.

'What if, whoever was feeding it, also put a dish of beer out for it?' Chrissie wondered.

'Social media!' Alice exclaimed.

Jack saw where she was going with that. 'Chrissie, get the search bots to look for a missing fox who likes to drink beer.'

'Good idea,' Chrissie said and tapped the instructions into her tablet.

'Good work Carl,' Jack said, 'Do we have anything on the Agar?'

Josephine Spencer from the Research Department answered that one. 'We looked into the purchasing of large quantities of Agar, and online, you can buy ten kilos at a time. So if ten people make five purchases, you have your half a metric ton. If you use a different account each time and have it delivered to collection lockers, then you are completely anonymous.'

'It was always a long shot,' Jack said. 'Next topic is the cyber attack. Any leads?'

Chrissie answered that one. 'Alice identified our suspect and I managed to track her to Stratford Underground Station and then lost her.'

'She gave YOU the slip,' Rose said in amazement.

'Afraid so. Whoever she was, she was well trained. Andy was telling me about a technique the SAS use. This woman went into the toilets, where she would not only have completely changed her appearance, but would have changed her personality, and even her gender,' Chrissie informed them.

'So we don't even know if it was a woman to start with,' John realised.

'I wonder if it was this Sebastian Carter?' Rose wondered out loud.

'That's a possibility,' Jack agreed. 'And that leads us nicely on to people who might have an axe to grind.'

'Our prime suspect was Yvonne Hartman,' Josie started. 'Until she inconveniently died. Carter may be continuing a vendetta as he was so loyal to her. We also looked at members of Torchwood security from the bad old days.'

'Was that the guys with all the guns?' Rose asked, remembering the soldiers in combat fatigues in the old universe who had surrounded the TARDIS when they had landed in Torchwood.

'Yeah. That was them,' Andy said with a hint of irritation in his voice. He'd never liked Yvonne's personal security force. Only a handful of them were professional soldiers, and the rest weren't particularly well trained. Not like his Special Operations Agents.

'I thought that if they followed her orders in the past, they might have continued to do so through Carter,' Josie continued. 'It turns out that a few of them stayed in touch with each other after the enquiry, and recently started an outward bounds survival school. You know the sort of thing, team bonding exercises for company employees.'

'And a cover for possible training of mercenaries and private security individuals,' Andy added.

'Where do they run this school?' Alice asked.

'It's in Devon,' Josie said as she read from her screen.

'Where in Devon?' John asked urgently.

Josie read more details. 'Er, somewhere on Dartmoor.'

'Dartmoor!' John exclaimed. 'I knew it.'

'That's where you said The Forge had their base,' Jack remembered.

'The Forge?' everyone asked.

'A bit like Torchwood in the bad old days. There's a chance they may be inside government,' John explained.

'Andy. I think we need to send a team down to Dartmoor and check it out,' Jack said.

'I'll put a mission together when we've finished the meeting.'

Jack nodded and turned to Chrissie. 'Chrissie. What do we know about those devices Rose's abductors used to kill themselves with.'

'Now they are interesting,' Chrissie said. 'Custom built on the design of a defibrillator or cattle prod, all contained in a case made to look like a 9 Volt battery. It discharges 1 Amp of current at 500 Volts between the battery terminals when you press the outer casing with your thumb.'

'And that stops the heart?' Jack asked.

'200 milliamps would do it,' John told him. 'This is overkill . . . if you'll pardon the expression.'

'So they'd rather die than go to prison,' Andy realised.

Alice added her insights into their psychology. 'It could be that they've been radicalised and are fanatically loyal and obedient to their leader.'

'Could they have been brainwashed and programmed to commit suicide?' Chrissie asked.

'That's a possibility,' Alice agreed. 'Or it could be that failure was not an option, and what would be done to them was worse than any punishment the establishment could deliver.'

'A fate worse than death,' John said. 'I've always wondered what that would be.'

'Were there any traceable components used in it's construction?' Jack asked hopefully.

'No. All standard parts, available from any electronics supplier.'

'Do we have anything else?' Jack asked, looking around the table.

John held up the portrait which Alan Fabry had drawn. 'I think we may have a lead on who worked on the stolen scanners.'

'Where did you get that from?' Jack asked.

'Believe it or not, it was a psychic who didn't know he was a psychic,' John told him.

Jack frowned. 'What, the comic guy?'

'Yeah. When he draws, he gets impressions of events which have occured. A bit like the automatic writing that some mediums do. They're not communicating with ghosts like they think, they're picking up thoughts telepathically,' John explained.

'Do we know who he is?' Andy asked.

'Chrissie?' John asked.

'I ran the sketch through the facial recognition search algorithm,' Chrissie explained. 'The best match we've got is Haruto Suzuki. We can't be a hundred percent sure as it's not a photograph, but he fits the profile. This guy's an electronics genius and suspected hacker, although nothing has ever been proved.'

'Sounds like a good candidate,' Alice said.

'Yeah. Definitely worth a look,' Jack agreed. 'Chrissie, can we set up some electronic surveillance on him?'

'It looks like he's set himself up on a virtual private network, so it's going to be difficult to get anything on him,' Chrissie explained. 'But we are tracing connections which he's bounced around global servers. That might lead us to the people who organised the ambush.'

'Good. So we wait for a lead on the fox feeder, see what Andy can find on Dartmoor, and see who Mister Suzuki leads us to.'

With the meeting concluded, everyone stood and left the Briefing Room to go back to their departments. John and Rose's shift had finished half an hour ago so made ready to leave for the day. That was when they felt uneasiness from Juleshka and Jason.

['Kids? What's up?'] Rose thought to them.

['Grandma says Tony's late back from school,'] Juleshka answered. ['She's tried to phone him, but he's not answering.']

Rose looked at John in alarm, and they ran to the Despatch Office. One of the White Watch agents who they recognised as Rick was on Despatch.

'Rick. Activate Tony Tyler's emergency transponder. Now!' John ordered.

Rick acted first and asked why second. 'What's up?'

'He's not come back from school this afternoon,' Rose told him, tears starting to sting her eyes.

'Bloody hell,' Rick said and hit the Condition Red button. Members of the Watch hurried into the office to see what was happening.

'What's happening?' they asked.

'Rose's brother has gone missing,' Rick told them.

Some of the female members put their arms around Rose's shoulders. 'Oh Rose. You poor thing.'

'I'm sure he'll be alright.' 'Maybe he's at a friend's house,' agents offered as explanations.

When he saw the Code Red, Andy McNab came from his office, where he had been organising a foray to Dartmoor. 'John, Rose? What's happened?'

As John was bringing him up to speed, Rose's phone rang and she saw that it was Jackie. 'Mum? We know. The kids told us and we're already on it.'

['Oh Sweetheart. Where is he?'] Jackie wailed.

Rose started crying with her, and the women of the watch rubbed her back in an attempt to give her comfort and support. 'We're just tryin' to find him now Mum. Look, I've gotta go so I can help John. As soon as we've got anythin' we'll let y'know. Okay?'

Jackie sniffed back tears. ['Okay. You go on Sweetheart and get yer brother back.']

'Bye Mum.'

'I want two teams,' Andy commanded. 'One at Highgate School working their way towards the Tyler residence. The Other at the Tyler's, working their way towards the school. Scene of Crime protocol. Go.'

The agents ran to their lockers to grab their gear, and then ran to the bullet lift.

'Thanks Andy,' Rose said. He nodded and rubbed her upper arm, before turning to the Despatch Desk.

'Have we got his signal yet?' Andy asked.

'This isn't possible,' John said as he looked at the screens. 'The transponders work everywhere. So where's his beacon?'

['Could it have been another Angel?'] Rose asked in his head.

['I doubt it, but it's not impossible. We need the TARDIS.'] John took out his smartphone and used the TARDIS app. The Standby Room was filled with the groaning, grinding sound of the TARDIS.

'What about RF shielding or jammers?' Andy asked, unaware of the private conversation.

'The transponders are designed to get through an RF cage, and a broadband jammer . . . Unless . . .'

'Unless what?' Andy asked.

'What if the ambush on the golf course wasn't just to get the tech?' John said pinching his thumb and finger together. 'What if they were monitoring transmissions? Don't forget, when they grabbed Rose, they must have been amazed that we found her so soon. So they ambush a team. Monitor any emergency signals, and find the beacon. Except they couldn't find a beacon. So they build a transmitter which inverts the phase of the emergency signal and feeds it back, effectively cancelling it out.'

'Damn!' Andy cursed. 'So how do we find him?'

'Carefully,' John told him. 'Very carefully.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

John and Rose held the TARDIS in geostationary orbit above London. They had done this once before, when ten years ago, they had watched a Jathaa Sunglider take off from Wimbledon common with a consignment of a "zombie" virus. They had then jumped forward to their present to intercept them.

This time though, it was different, and not just because it was Rose's brother. All the emotions, thoughts, and Torchwood agent's actions were causing hundreds of splinters in the timeline. Each one a domino stacked ready to take the rest down. The wrong action could cause an implosion of reality.

'There he is!' Rose said, spotting Tony walking along Wood Lane with Jamie on the monitor.' Oh I just wish I could jump in and grab him.'

'I know, Love. Me too,' John sympathised. 'But we've got to let events take their course as we know they already have.'

'Yeah, I know. It's just hard to watch.'

'Why don't you have a sit down and I'll follow him,' John said kindly.

Rose smiled at him. 'No. It's Okay. I want to do somethin' to help him.'

They watched him wave to Jamie as they separated, and carry on to where Wood Lane became Queenswood Road. They saw him edge past the BT van, but never make it past.

'That's it!' Rose said angrily. 'He's in that van.'

They watched as the van followed the roads around Queen's Wood, to come back onto Archway Road and drive south towards Holloway, through Hoxton, Spitalfields, and Whitechapel.

'Surely they're not headin' for the Tower?' Rose queried.

'Maybe nearby,' John said. 'The best place to hide is often right under someone's nose.'

'I hope he's alright.'

'He'd better be,' John said with a hint of the Oncoming Storm in his voice. Rose hadn't heard that for many a year.

They watched the van turn left onto The Highway. 'They are headin' for the Tower,' Rose said. 'Well, the Docklands at least.'

The van drove into Limehouse Link Tunnel and they lost sight of it.

'Damn. There's two places they could come out,' John said.

They both drove through the tunnel everyday to Torchwood, and halfway through the road split to go to either the Isle of Dogs, or the Royal Docks. John and Rose usually took the Royal Docks route as it led to Aspen way and Canary Wharf. The two exits were within a quarter of a mile of each other. Rose watched the Isle Of Dogs exit, whilst John watched the Royal Docks.

'Got 'em,' John said, as the van emerged onto Aspen Way. They'd emerged from the tunnel a little later than John predicted, but he put that down to traffic. The van followed the road all the way past City Airport to North Woolwich.

'Where the hell ARE they goin' then?' Rose asked.

'Hang on. There's a British Telecom depot at North Woolwich. Don't tell me they're going there,' John said.

'It would make a good hidin' place for the van,' Rose reasoned. 'I'm callin' Andy. He can send the teams there to conduct a search.' She took her phone out of her jacket pocket and selected Andy's number.

['McNab.']

'Andy. It's Rose. He's in a BT van in the depot at North Woolwich. We followed them there in the TARDIS. Throw everythin' you can at 'em.'

['Understood Rose. They're on their way, and I'll blue light it there myself. Where are you? I'll pick you up on the way.']

'Ah. We're in orbit,' Rose told him. She looked at the map on the monitor. 'Tell y'what, we'll land on the corner of Albert Road and Store Road for when you drive past.'

['On my way. McNab out.'] Andy ended the call, and they set the coordinates to land the TARDIS slightly ahead of present time.

When they stepped out of the TARDIS, they heard the wail of a siren in the distance which was getting closer. The black Torchwood Subaru skidded to a halt on the corner of the junction.

'Jump in,' Andy called to them through the open window. John hurriedly climbed in the passenger seat, whilst Rose got in the back. Andy floored it and fishtailed around the corner. As they approached the end of the road, they could see the BT vans parked in the depot behind a green, wire security fence. They turned right, and right again. Past the exit of the car park and next right into the entrance.

'Which one?' Andy asked.

'Over there,' John told him, pointing to the van he and Rose had seen park there.

'Check the glove compartment,' Andy told John. 'And no arguments.'

John dropped down the glove compartment and found a Heckler & Koch HK MP5 and a stun gun. John handed the Heckler & Koch to his wife. In the present situation, he wasn't going to argue.

Andy skidded to a halt in front of the van, and leaped out with his Heckler & Koch HK MP5 in his hand, covering the windscreen. Rose quickly climbed out the back and rested her arms out straight on the roof of the car, gun aimed at the side window of the van. John jumped out of the passenger seat, and flattened his back against the side of the van.

Members of BT staff started approaching from the depot building, calling out to find out what was going on.

'TORCHWOOD,' Andy shouted. 'ARMED AGENTS. GO BACK INSIDE.' The shocked workers turned and ran.

John grabbed the handle of the side door and looked at Rose and Andy. They nodded that they were ready, and he slid the door back. He saw the puzzled and disappointed looks on their faces and looked in himself. There was a gymnastics crash mat in there, and nothing else.


	13. Ransom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete and Jackie receive a ransom demand for Tony, and Andy has to deliver it . . . Alone. The ringleader reveals their identity, which can mean only one thing . . .

**Chapter 13**

**Ransom**

'Okay. You go on Sweetheart and get yer brother back,' Jackie told her daughter on her mobile phone. She ended the call and put it in her pocket. She looked at Pete. 'The kids had already told them. They're lookin' for him now.'

Pete looked down at his grandchildren who were playing on the rug with Alistair's daughter, Lillie. 'Thanks kids.'

Juleshka looked at her grandparents with an expression which seemed older than her eight years. 'I thought the sooner they know, the sooner they'll find him . . . Ah. Dad thinks they are blocking his tattoo. They're going to go in the TARDIS back to when he went missing and see if they can follow him.'

'They can do that can they?' Jackie asked.

'Yes. They can't interfere, but they can observe,' Juleshka informed her.

Pete smiled. 'Brilliant!'

Alistair entered the Living Room and saw that something was amiss. 'Is there a problem sir? I see that Tony isn't home yet. Is he over at Jamie's?'

'No. He's gone missing,' Pete told him.

'Dear God. Not again,' Alistair said. He was remembering when Rose and Eyulf had been kidnapped by lizard aliens ten years ago. 'Is there anything I can do. I could talk to some people and see what I can find out.'

Pete put a hand on his shoulder. 'Thanks for the offer Alistair. It really is appreciated, but John and Rose are in the TARDIS tracking him as we speak.'

'Thank God for mad, alien boxes,' Alistair said with relief. He heard the gate buzzer sound by the front door. 'Ah. Someone is at the gates. I'll go and see who it is.'

'Thanks,' Pete replied.

Alistair went to the front door and pressed the intercom. 'Tyler residence. Can I help you.'

['Hello. Yes. I have a parcel for Mister P. Tyler. Special delivery. I need a signature,'] a man said from the speaker.

'Thank you. I'll be right with you,' Alistair replied.

He went out of the front door, but instead of turning right to go towards the gates, he turned left and went around the far side of the house. There was an electric golf cart parked up, and he climbed inside. He pressed the start button and sped off down the drive to the gates. There was a motorcycle courier waiting with a book sized cardboard box under his arm, and a clipboard in his hand. He'd taken his helmet off and rested it on the seat of his motorcycle.

Alistair relaxed a little, knowing that taking his helmet off meant that he didn't mind the security cameras seeing his face, so he probably wasn't up to no good. The courier passed the clipboard through the railings of the gate and indicated where he needed a signature. He took back the clipboard and then passed the box through the railings.

'Thank you. Have a nice day,' the courier said, as he put his helmet back on.

'Thank you. Drive safe,' Alistair replied. He hoped that they would all end up having a good day. He jumped back in the golf cart and drove the hundred or so yards back to the Mansion.

'It was a courier Sir,' Alistair told Pete as he entered the Living Room. 'A parcel by special delivery.'

'Oh, thanks Alistair.' Pete frowned at the parcel. 'I don't remember ordering anything.'

'Mum and Dad are following the BT van,' Juleshka informed them. 'It's heading for the Docklands.'

'Oh, that's good. It won't be long now,' Jackie said hopefully.

Pete looked at the cardboard box and saw "Urgent. Open immediately" printed on it. He ripped the brown packing tape off and opened the box. There was a rugged tablet PC inside, with a strap to put it over your shoulder, and big red button in one corner. He looked inside the packaging to see if there was any indication of where it had come from or who sent it.

'What's that y'got?' Jackie asked.

'Someone's sent me a tablet, but there's no delivery advice or invoice.'

'Maybe it's on the screen when yer switch it on,' Jackie suggested.

'Ah. Good idea,' Pete said, and pressed the red button.

The tablet played a four note jingle as it switched on.

'Mum and Dad have landed the TARDIS in North Woolwich, and Andy's going to pick them up to intercept the van at a BT depot,' Juleshka updated.

Jackie clasped her hands together. 'Oh please let 'im be alright.'

A silhouette of someone's head and shoulders appeared on the tablet screen. [' **Peter Tyler. By now you will be aware that your son has been kidnapped** ,'] a gruff, electronically disguised voice told him. Jackie looked at the tablet in horror. [' **He is unharmed, and will remain so if you follow my instructions**.']

'Sorry to rain on your parade,' Pete said, about to tell him where he could stick his instructions, when Juleshka and Jason cried out.

'Oh no! The van's empty!'

The screen changed to show Tony handcuffed to a metal chair.

Jackie put her hands to her mouth. 'Tony!'

['Mum? Dad?'] Tony cried.

'Tony. Are you alright? Have they harmed you?' Pete asked.

['I'm alright Dad. They've just handcuffed me to this chair.']

The silhouette reappeared, and the disguised voice continued. [' **You have one hour to** **procure** **ten million pounds worth of diamonds. You and your wife will then take them, along with this tablet, to Captain McNab at Torchwood. He will act as your go between**.']

'Ten million in diamonds?' Pete said incredulously. 'In an hour?'

[' **We know of your contacts and connections. You have one hour**.']

The screen went blank.

Jackie started to sob. 'Oh Pete. What're we gonna do?'

'I need to make some calls,' he told her. One hour would be tight.

'Mister Tyler. I could see if my contacts could help.' Alistair offered.

'Grumps,' Juleshka said, using the name they had given him when they were toddlers. 'Dad says "no problem. Get to Torchwood and he'll meet us there".'

Pete just stared at her, not comprehending what was happening. 'What?'

'I told them you had received a ransom demand on a tablet, and he said to tell you "no problem".'

Pete looked at Jackie, then at Alistair, and finally back to Juleshka and Jason. It had been a while since he had been director of the Institute, but he still had the skills.

'Jules. Is EJ up to speed with what's happening?' Juleshka and Jason nodded. 'Good. Alistair. Would you mind putting the kids in your car, swinging by John and Rose's to pick up EJ, and take them to the Tower?'

'Of course sir. Come on children, get your coats. We're going to Torchwood,' Alistair said as he started to organise them.

Pete looked at Jackie. 'The Tower will be the safest place for them, and we won't have to worry about them. Come on, grab your coat. We're going to get our son back.'

**Torchwood Special Operations Unit.**

**Torchwood Tower, Canary Wharf.**

John, Rose, and Andy were in the Hub of the Special Operations Unit. Andy had got a lift back in the TARDIS, and left one of the agents to drive the Subaru back. John had then made a trip on his own, telling Rose that he was going to shield his thoughts, and asking her to trust him. Of course she trusted him. He was back in less than a minute.

'How the hell did they get him out of the back of the van?' Rose asked, as they tried to work out how Tony had disappeared. 'Was it a transmat?'

'Why drive all the way to North Woolwich then?' John asked. 'They could have just teleported him off the street.'

'Yeah. It must have been the tunnel then,' Rose reasoned. 'There's that cross hatched area where the road splits. A car could wait there and do a switch.'

Andy nodded. 'The BT van went right, and the second vehicle could have gone left or right. That's textbook evasive driving. These people are professionals.'

'I'll be sure to complement 'em when I see 'em,' Rose said sharply, and regretted it as soon as she'd said it. 'Sorry Andy. That was uncalled for.'

'Hey. No apology necessary. We're all stressed.'

'So, it's their move,' John said. 'This time we've been out manoeuvred.'

'We can still gather information though,' Andy said. 'Chrissie. Anything on our hacker, Suzuki?'

Chrissie had stayed on after her shift to take charge of Technical Support. She checked her logs. 'Plenty of traffic through global servers. Nothing we can pin him down on though.'

Andy grinned. 'We've got a drawing of him by a psychic. It won't stand up in court, but it's enough grounds for suspicion. Let's pull him in and see how he likes the charge of conspiracy to kidnap.'

As the members of White Watch returned from North Woolwich, Andy sent two of them to bring Suzuki in. Other members of the Watch reported to the Despatch Desk with the interviews of the BT staff at the depot, and video footage. The White Watch supervisor popped his head around the door to the Hub.

'Any news?'

John and Rose, shook their heads.

'We've brought the van into the garage for forensics, Boss,' the supervisor told Andy.

'Good work. Tell them to get right on it. This takes priority,' Andy instructed.

'Rose, John. Your families have arrived,' Chrissie announced.

'Oh, thanks Chrissie,' Rose said.

John and Rose went through to the Standby Room, and hugged their family. Jackie and Pete were beside themselves with worry and their eyes were red from where they had been crying. Alistair had Lillie with him, and Alice had joined them after Alistair had phoned her and brought her up to speed with events.

Andy came over to them. 'Pete. Good to see you again. Although different circumstances would have been nice.'

Pete shook his hand. 'Thanks Andy. Here, you'll need this.' He handed over the tablet PC.

'Oh. Let me have a look at that,' John said, and took out his sonic screwdriver.

'Careful Love. We don't want to stop it workin',' Rose cautioned.

'Just scanning. Seeing if I can get any information about it. Where it's come from, how it's connecting to the data server,' John told her. 'Ah. Satellite uplink and downlink. It looks like an off the shelf tablet which has been modified.'

'Can you tell who by?' Chrissie asked.

'I'm betting when Mister Suzuki gets here you could ask him,' John suggested. 'Ooh. Hang on. It's activating.' He handed the tablet back to Pete.

The same silhouette appeared on the screen. [' **Peter Tyler. Do you have the ransom**?']

Pete looked at John, and John nodded. 'Yes. I have it.'

[' **Good. Now give the ransom and the tablet to Captain McNab**.']

Pete handed the tablet over. 'I'm Captain McNab,' Andy said.

[' **Captain McNab. You will follow my instructions to deliver the ransom. There will be no emergency transponders. No covert communications or surveillance. Any attempt to follow you or track you will result in harm befalling Tony Tyler. Is that understood**?']

'Understood,' Andy replied.

'Er. I'll get the ransom and put it in a rucksack for you Andy,' John said with a wink at Andy.

'Thank you Doctor Smith.' Andy looked back at the tablet. 'How will I be delivering the ransom?'

[' **You will take a pool car, and I will give you directions as you drive**.']

'I'll make my way down to the garage once I've got the rucksack,' Andy said.

John indicated that Andy should give the tablet back to Pete, and rolled his hand in the air for Pete to stall for time. He took Andy into the TARDIS to fetch the rucksack and the ransom.

'It's Pete Tyler. I want to know that my son is still alright.'

[' **You are in no position to make demands** ,'] the voice told him. [' **However, I am not insensitive to your distress**.'] The image changed to show Tony again.

['Mum, Dad?']

'Oh my God, Tony,' Rose cried.

['I'm okay Sis. They've told me I'll be home soon.']

'Okay Lil' Bro. See you soon, yeah?'

Andy came out of the TARDIS wearing a black, military rucksack, and John followed him carrying a small wooden box.

'Are those the diamonds?' Pete asked as he handed the tablet back to Andy.

'DiamonD,' John said, emphasising the "D". 'Singular.' He opened the box and showed them the most enormous diamond they had ever seen, resting in a red cushioned interior.

'Is that the Koh-i-Noor diamond?' Rose asked.

'Yep. I explained the situation to a friend of ours and she let me borrow it,' John said with a grin. 'That should satisfy them.'

'Oh my God,' Jackie said with wide eyes. 'It's beautiful.'

John closed the box and put it in the rucksack. 'Look after it,' he said to Andy.

Andy nodded. 'I'll bring him back.'

[' **Wear the tablet around your neck with the screen and camera facing outwards** ,'] the voice said as Pete handed back the tablet.

Andy put the strap over his head, and without another word, headed for the bullet lift.

In the Torchwood garage under the Tower, Andy took a pool car and drove out of the car park onto North Colonnade, and left onto Upper Bank Street which would take him off the Isle Of Dogs. It was late afternoon, and it was getting dark.

[' **Turn left onto Aspen way and drive to Hatton Gardens** ,'] the voice said from the tablet

'Hatton Gardens?'

[' **To verify the authenticity of the merchandise**.']

'Of course,' Andy said with a nod. No self respecting kidnapper would take their word for it that it was the genuine article. Twenty minutes later, Andy turned right into Hatton Gardens, the London jewellery quarter.

[' **Pull up here** ,'] the voice said. It was outside the very first jewellery shop in the street. [' **The proprietor has been contacted to value some diamonds**.']

'Is he in for a surprise,' Andy said to himself.

He climbed out of the car, grabbed the rucksack, and crossed the road. As he entered the shop, a buzzer sounded to alert staff that someone had entered the shop. It was redundant however, as a man was standing behind the glass topped counter. It may only have been a small shop, but it had the advantage of being the first shop in the street. The owner was obviously aware of this strategic advantage, because he was wearing an expensive suit, had neatly coiffed hair, and wore some serious "bling".

'Good afternoon sir,' the man said, eyeing the tablet hanging over Andy's chest with suspicion.

'Afternoon,' Andy replied. 'I understand someone has contacted you about a valuation.'

'Ah, yes,' the man said in surprise. He was obviously expecting someone in a suit, not a paramilitary uniform.

Andy took the box out of the rucksack and put it on the counter as the man placed a magnifying eyepiece to his eye. Andy opened the box, and the eyepiece hit the glass counter top as the man's eyes went wide in amazement. He looked at Andy and then grinned.

'This is a joke, isn't it?' the man said.

Andy wasn't smiling as he picked up the magnifying eyepiece and held it out. 'The well being of a fifteen year old boy is not a joke. Why don't you stick this in your eye and verify that it isn't a joke.'

The man immediately stopped grinning. In fact, when he saw the expression on Andy's face, he visibly paled. He was a reputable jeweller and had no dealings with the criminal underworld. If this was indeed genuine, then it must be stolen. He put the eyepiece in and started examining the exquisite gemstone.

'No. It isn't stolen,' Andy said, anticipating what the man was thinking. 'Check the news. If something like this was stolen, you'd know about it.'

The man straightened up and took the eyepiece out. He hadn't thought of that, and this imposing man, with his military bearing, was correct. He put the diamond on the weighing scales.

'One hundred and five carats. Oval brilliant cut. Sixty six facets. I don't understand how this could be THAT diamond,' the man said.

'You don't have to,' Andy told him and then remembered a phrase John and Rose were fond of using. 'It's complicated. The important question is . . . is it genuine?'

'Yes. Yes, absolutely, one hundred and five carat genuine.'

Andy looked down at the tablet hanging around his neck. 'Good enough for you? Can we get moving now?'

[' **Yes. Get back in the car**.']

The man nervously put the diamond back in the box and handed it to Andy. He didn't know what was going on, and neither did he want to. It was obviously something very serious, and probably very dangerous.

Andy got back in the car and started it up. [' **Turn the car around. Turn left onto Charterhouse Street , right onto Farringdon Street and drive south** ,'] the voice on the tablet instructed.

He drove for four miles until he was south of the river, and approached the sprawling Sandgate Street industrial estate in South Bermondsey. It was a maze of back streets between red and brown bricked buildings from the early nineteen hundreds. A disused factory unit was a perfect hiding place. The voice from the tablet directed him to pull into a yard surrounded by metal fencing, which contained a disused, single story unit.

[' **Leave the tablet in the car. You have arrived at your final destination** ,'] the voice said ominously.

Andy climbed out of the car and went around to the passenger door, where he took off the tablet, dropping it on the passenger seat, and shrugging on the rucksack. He looked up at the dark, evening sky and gave a casual salute with a finger against his forehead, before walking towards a door to the left of a roller shutter door, and trying the handle. The door was unlocked, so he stepped inside.

The inside of the building was illuminated by fluorescent light strips hanging from the ceiling on long chains. Andy could see Tony sitting on a metal armchair which was bolted to the floor. Both wrists were handcuffed to the arms of the chair, and he had a cloth bag over his head. A tablet PC hung around his neck which showed the silhouette of the person's head and shoulders.

Andy's SAS trained eyes quickly scanned the room and spotted security cameras in each corner of the room. Behind the chair was a large free standing safe with the door open.

[' **So, here we are. It was nice of you to come** ,'] the voice said from the tablet. Tony started to struggle and mumble. They must have gagged him under the hood.

'You made me an offer I couldn't refuse,' he said to the silhouette. 'It's okay Tony. I've come to take you home.'

[' **Take the merchandise out of the rucksack and show it to the camera** **on the tablet** **.** ']

Andy shrugged the rucksack off his back and put it on the floor. He reached inside and took out a wooden box, before putting the rucksack back on his shoulders. He opened the box and showed the diamond to the camera.

[' **Very good. Now, place it in the safe and close it**.']

Andy walked around to the safe, knelt down on one knee and put the box in the safe. He closed the safe door and spun the tumblers. He was then aware of a regular beeping sound coming from the chair. Behind Tony was a black box with red LED numbers on it which were counting down from sixty.

'What the hell?'

[' **You'd better hurry if you want to get out safely** ,'] the disguised voice said.

'Where are the keys to the handcuffs?' Andy asked urgently.

[' **Haven't you got them? They were in the safe**.']

Andy had seen inside the safe. He knew there were no keys in there. 'What kind of sick bastard are you?'

[' **Do you really want to know**?'] the disguised voice asked. [' **Very well**.'] The image on the screen went from silhouette to front lit.

'Hartman!'

['Hello Andy . . . Oh, and you might want to take the hood off Tony as well.']

Andy lifted the hood off the Tony's head and saw that it was some other unfortunate fifteen year old with duct tape over his mouth.

'WHY?' Andy screamed at her.

['What's the worst thing any member of the SAS can suffer?'] Yvonne asked him with a smile. ['Failure.']

The timer got to zero. Andy rushed forward to hug the boy; either in a futile attempt to protect him from the impending blast, or more likely to comfort him in the last second of his life.

BOOM!

A massive fireball blew out the dirty windows, the door and fluttered the roller shutter like a horizontal flag on a breeze. Balls of orange flame roiled up into the air mixed with dense black smoke.


	14. Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Andy gone. Pete is contacted again by the kidnappers and the real motive is revealed.

**Chapter 14**

**Revenge**

Once Andy had left the Unit, John ran through into the Hub, and everyone followed him. 'Chrissie I want you to tap into the police cameras. We might not be able to track him, but we can watch him.'

Rose went over to the White Watch supervisor. 'Geoff isn't it?'

'Yeah. And you're Rose,' Geoff said with a smile. Watch supervisors knew of each other, but rarely had the opportunity to meet. And of course, they all knew Rose and John from the TV show.

'That's right. I hope you don't mind us takin' over the Watch,' Rose said apologetically.

Geoff rubbed her upper arm. 'Hey. If it gets your brother back.'

Rose gave him a hug. 'Thanks. Can your teams be ready to provide back up to Andy?'

Geoff grinned and turned to his Watch. 'Yo. Listen up. I want two teams in full combat gear, down in the garage ready to roll the second Captain McNab needs us.' Every member of the Watch stepped forward to volunteer, which sent a shiver of pride down Rose's back.

'No ear comms,' John called to them. 'Whoever they are, have probably hacked into the ones that were stolen on the golf course. Mobile phones and SMS only for this mission.'

'Did everybody get that?' Geoff asked. 'We'll text you a go when we're ready.'

'Let's see what I can see from above,' John said as he sat at the control desk next to Chrissie.

Chrissie contacted Jimmy "Wheels" May, head of vehicle logistics in the garage. 'Jimmy? It's Chrissie Anderson up in Spec Ops. Can you tell me which pool car Captain McNab is driving?'

['Hi Chrissie. Yes, he's driving a grey, Kia e-Nero. Licence plate lima-two-six, mike-hotel-alpha,'] Jimmy informed her.

'Thanks Jimmy. I've got him coming up out of the car park now,' Chrissie replied.

Chissie expertly followed the car with the night vision street cameras as it drove west across London to Hatton Garden. They saw the car pull up and Andy get out.

'Is this it?' Rose asked. 'Do we send in the troops?'

'Oh, that's clever,' John said as he watched Andy enter the jewellers. 'Not yet Love. They're a typical criminal. They don't trust us.'

Chrissie realised what John was thinking. 'They're verifying that the diamond is genuine.'

'John,' Rick called out from the Despatch Desk. 'Suzuki's here. The agents want to know what you want them to do with him.'

'Sit him in the office with a cup of coffee. I'll be with them soon,' John replied. 'Oh, and don't let him near any tech.'

They watched again as Andy got back in the car and drove south. He went over Blackfriars Bridge towards South Bermondsey and turned onto the industrial estate. The cameras became few and far between, so it was hard to keep up with Andy's movements.

'This is more like it,' John said. 'They'd know we were following with the cameras, so they pick an area that isn't covered.'

'There's that familiarity with our procedures again,' Chrissie said as she cast her eyes over all the different screens, looking for the next one Andy would appear on.

'Yeah,' John agreed. 'A shame they don't know about this one though.' On his screen, he could see an aerial view of the industrial estate as though it were in daylight, and Andy's car weaving its way through the maze of streets.

Chrissie looked over at his screen. 'Where's that feed coming from?'

'A little gadget we left in orbit when we were trackin' the BT van,' Rose told her.

'I thought we might need some extra eyes in the sky,' John said. 'You can read a newspaper headline; take someone's temperature; see what the mobile phone network coverage is like; get the weather forecast . . . I just don't know when to stop.'

'Neither does yer gob,' Rose said cheekily. Her spirits had lifted considerably now she knew Andy would soon be rescuing her brother.

'Oi,' John said in mock offence. 'Ah. Here we go. He's pulled into this yard . . . He's getting out. Okay, send that text.'

They watched as Andy shrugged on the rucksack, looked up, gave a salute wave, and entered the building.

'You told him about the gadget, didn't ya?' Rose said to John.

'Yeah, when we went into the TARDIS to get the rucksack. I wanted him to know he wasn't on his own,' John told her.

Rose leaned over his back and kissed his cheek. 'He'd appreciate that.'

She suddenly gasped, along with everyone else who was watching the screen. She then wailed in despair as everyone watched an orange fireball fill the screen.

'It was a trap!' John exclaimed. 'The whole thing was an elaborate set up to get Andy.'

'What about Tony?' Jackie wailed, who'd been watching from the back of the room with Pete.

John turned to look at them. Rose had joined them and they were hugging each other as they cried. 'We don't know if he was in there. It could have just been Andy they were after. All the incidents over the last few days have reeked of revenge.' He left his chair and went through to the Despatch Desk. 'Rick. Tell the teams what has happened and ask them to report on casualties via SMS.'

'Right away,' Rick replied and started to contact the teams speeding towards South Bermondsey. He'd been keeping up with the conversation and knew John was asking "how many bodies".

John went over to the distraught family and hugged his wife, rubbing her back. 'Everything is going to be okay,' he told her in a tone of voice which told her he knew something she didn't.

'Really?' She asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her fingers.

He kissed her on the lips. 'Trust me.'

The occupants in the Despatch Office and Hub were silent as they waited for the agents to get to the scene and report back. They hoped against hope that Andy and Tony had survived. "Andy's SAS. He'd have found a way to survive that," someone had speculated when the news circulated through the Unit. "Maybe there's a cellar. Someone pull up the building plans and check", another had said. But they all knew, deep down, that what they had witnessed was virtually impossible to survive.

'The response team has reported in' Rick announced as he read his screen. He looked at John for confirmation, and John nodded. 'One body recovered from the rubble . . . They're bringing him home.'

Rose wiped a tear off her cheek. 'Poor Andy.'

John hugged her and rubbed her back. 'Don't give up on him yet.'

Rose looked up at him. 'Eh?'

Before she could question him further, Pete's mobile started ringing and he reached it out of his pocket. The display said "unknown number". He swiped the screen to answer and put the phone to his ear. 'Hello?'

[' **Peter Tyler. As you are probably aware by now, Captain McNab was unsuccessful in the delivery of the ransom** ,'] the gruff, electronically disguised voice said.

'What the hell? Who are you? Is my son alive?' Pete asked. Everyone turned to look at him.

['Dad?'] Tony asked.

'TONY! Oh thank God. Are you okay son?'

He heard his son start to cry. ['I'm okay Dad. They want you and Mum to come and fetch me . . . **Mister Tyler. Listen carefully. Your son's life depends on it**.']

John and Rose watched Pete as he concentrated on what someone was saying on his phone. He took the phone from his ear, looked at it, and then put it back in his pocket.

'Tony's alive!' he said and grabbed Jackie in a hug and gave her a long kiss of relief.

'Where is he Dad?' Rose asked.

'I don't know. I have to follow the instructions I've been given, and I can't tell you what they are,' Pete informed them.

'Well that's okay,' Rose said. 'We'll come with you.'

'NO. They said it's just me and Jackie, Anyone else, and what happened to Andy will happen to Tony. We can't take that risk. I thought I'd lost him once, I can't lose him again,' Pete explained.

John could sympathise with that. He remembered a Dalek in van Statten's bunker back in the old universe.

'But Dad. They've just blown Andy up,' Rose protested. 'What if they want to do the same to you?'

Pete put a hand on her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb. 'Rose. It's Tony. I have to try. Imagine if it was EJ . . . What would you do?'

She put her and over his, tears glistening in her eyes. 'I'd risk everythin' to get 'im back . . . Is there anythin' me or John can do to help?'

Pete smiled at her as he took his phone out of his pocket and waved it in the air. 'When I call, can you come running?'

Rose looked at John and held his hand. She turned back to face her parents and smiled. 'Oh, we can run alright. We've been doin' it fer years.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Pete and Jackie walked hand-in-hand out of the front entrance of Torchwood Tower, the bright wall lights illuminating the metal pillars which supported the canopy above them. They crossed South Colonnade, walked down the steps to Reuters Plaza and past the restaurants which had chairs and tables outside. They climbed the three wide steps and headed for the domed entrance of Canary Wharf Station on the left, where they took the escalator down to the concourse below. It was rush hour, and there were plenty of people about, heading home from work.

They bought two tickets to Canning Town, and passed through the bank of turnstiles, which allowed them to take the escalator down to the Jubilee Line platform. A few minutes later, a light breeze came from the tunnel as the train approached. They boarded the train with the other passengers and took a sideways facing seat. It all seemed so normal in a totally abnormal situation. They did what everyone did when sitting on an underground train, they looked at the map and counted the number of stops to Canning Town.

Tony wouldn't be in Canning Town when they arrived. What would be there, was the Docklands Light Railway station which would take them to West Silvertown. Pete knew they were being sent on public transport so that Torchwood couldn't follow them. Every time he saw a surveillance camera, he looked at it and gave a salute with his finger to his forehead, hoping that Chrissie was keeping up with their journey. She couldn't know which stations they were going to, because he was using cash to buy the tickets rather than a bank card which Torchwood could trace.

Five minutes later, the train pulled into Canning Town station and they disembarked. It seemed strange to call it the underground, when at this station it ran above ground. It was a transport hub of underground, bus, and Docklands Light Railway. Pete led Jackie to the Docklands Light Railway platform, and took a seat. Jackie pulled the collar up on her coat and pulled it around her ears. The platform was in the open air, and the dark evening was chilly. Pete put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

Neither of them spoke as they waited. What was there to say? They both knew that what they were doing was dangerous, but what else could they do? Their son needed them, and they would be there for him no matter what. The red, tram-like rectangular train pulled into the station, and they boarded. It was a ten minute journey to West Silvertown, along the elevated track which ran alongside Silvertown Way.

Pete nudged Jackie's arm and pointed out the window. To the west they could see the O2 Arena, and beyond that, Torchwood Tower. So near, and yet so far. When they arrived at West Silvertown station, the track was around thirty feet above the road. The platform being at the top of an enclosed, metal clad, zig-zag staircase.

'Mister and Misses Tyler. Please, follow me,' a man said to them. He was wearing a smart, grey, pinstripe suit, with a long, black coat over the top. He appeared to be in his fifties, with wavy grey hair and beard.

He led them down the steps to street level and they came out under the elevated track. To their left, North Woolwich Road had turned at the traffic lights and ran in front of the station. A car was parked in a small lay-by in front of some industrial hoarding. The man went over to the car and opened the rear door.

'Misses Tyler?' he said, gesturing with his arm for her to get in.

Jackie cast a worried look at Pete, before they walked over to the car and got in. The man drove them along the road with the elevated track to their left, and the elevated Silvertown Way to their right. As Silvertown Way rose higher, small industrial units utilising the space under the road started to appear. The car pulled up in front of one which had a roller shutter which was rolled three quarters of the way up, and had double wooden doors behind the shutters.

The man got out of the car and opened the door for Jackie. She climbed out, and Pete got out the far side and walked around to hold her hand. The man pushed the right hand door open halfway and stepped inside. Pete and Jackie looked at each other. He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, before straightening up and leading her inside.

The building was occupied by several men and women wearing military fatigues, some of whom were carrying firearms. On the right was what looked like a small, partition walled office. At the rear, near the fire escape, they could see the metal chair Tony had been handcuffed to. On the left wall towards the rear, were three, thick walled, plexiglass cylinders which stood from floor to ceiling, about eight feet high. Tony Tyler was sitting cross legged in the first of those cylinders.

'TONY!' Jackie cried and ran forward, with Pete close behind her.

'Mum. Dad!' Tony called out as he stood and put his hands against the wall of the cylinder.

Jackie put her hands against his on the outside. 'Tony. Are you alright Sweetheart?'

'Have they hurt you at all Son?' Pete asked.

'I'm scared,' he told them in a trembling voice. 'They won't tell me what's going on.'

'Us neither,' Pete said, giving the man in the suit a pointed stare.

'All in good time Peter. We're nearly there. We just need you to stand in these cylinders if you would,' the man told him. He went to the furthest cylinder. 'Misses Tyler. If you would stand in here.'

Jackie walked up to the door of the cylinder and looked inside. 'You're havin' a laugh. I ain't goin' in there.'

'Oh. Alright,' the man said. He turned to one of the soldiers. 'Take the boy out and shoot him.'

Tony's eyes went wide in terror. 'Mum?'

'NO. No . . . I'll do it,' Jackie said, and stepped inside the cylinder.

The curved door was inside the cylinder on runners, top and bottom. The corners were rounded and the edges bevelled. When the man in the suit pressed a button on the control panel on the outside of the cylinder, the door slid across the entrance and then moved forward to seal the door in place.

'Mister Tyler?' The man queried with raised eyebrows.

Pete stepped into the middle cylinder and watched the door seal. He immediately noticed that his cylinder was different. It had two pedestals in front of the adjacent cylinders, with big red buttons on top.

'So, what happens now?' Pete asked. 'It doesn't take a genius to know that this is about my time as director of Torchwood. You've got me where you want me, so let them go . . . Please.'

'Oh we will,' the man said. 'Sort of.'

' **Oh. How clever of you to work it out Peter. Sebastian, I think the time for concealment is over** ,' the disguised voice said. Pete looked beyond the man in the suit and saw a woman come out of the small office wearing a brown military, knee length skirt, jacket, and knee high boots. She wore a peaked cap which hid her eyes, and held a square microphone in front of her mouth.

The man in the suit smiled, and reached up behind his head. It looked like he was trying to take a wig off. But he pulled his hands apart, and the whole of his head came forwards as he peeled off a latex mask to reveal a younger man underneath.

Pete recognised him straight away. 'Sebastian Carter.'

'Who's he then?' Jackie asked.

Pete looked at her. 'He used to be Yvonne Hartman's trained puppy.' He looked back at Carter. 'Who's pulling your strings now?'

Carter smirked. 'Same employer . . . Different organisation.'

Pete frowned. 'How can it be the same employer. Hartman's dead. She was killed in a car crash.' He'd been keeping up to date with Torchwood in his home office which was still Torchwood enabled, and Rose had also been giving him updates.

' **As Twain once said, the reports of my death** are greatly exaggerated,' the military woman said, as she lowered the Vocoder from in front of her mouth and took off her peaked cap.

She didn't have long, blonde, wavy hair. It was short, black and straight, but the sweet, sickly smile was unmistakable. 'Hello Peter.'

'Yvonne? But . . . How?'

'Oh, it's surprising what you can learn in prison. Did you know there are some unscrupulous orthodontists who, for a sufficient remuneration, will perform dental surgery on cadavers? Apparently, they can make two dental records look identical.'

'Yvonne?' Jackie queried. 'You're the mad bitch from the bad old days!'

Pete gave her an exasperated look. 'Probably best not to antagonise her in our current situation.'

'That's alright Peter. I like people who speak their mind,' Yvonne told him.

'So all of this is about revenge?' Pete asked. 'But why kill Andy? He never crossed you.'

'Didn't he?' Yvonne asked. 'You were at my sham of a trial. Two of the charges were conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, and conspiracy to commit murder. Andy gave evidence from various mission logs, which was fine. But he also wrote "actions taken" at the end of each log. It was the actions I took after the missions which the prosecution used against me.'

'So you blew him the fuck up,' Pete said.

'It would have been nice and quick for him. Quicker than dying in a prison serving a life sentence . . . And then there was you, Peter Tyler. You should have been locked up for colluding with John Lumic. But no, you convinced Harriet Jones to let you work for Torchwood.'

'She asked me,' Pete corrected.

Yvonne ignored him. 'And then you told the court everything about what the Institute had been doing. Treason they charged me with . . . ME. Treason. Everything I did for the Institute was for Queen and Country, and they called it treason.'

'An' now yer want to get yer own back,' Jackie said.

'What was it Shakespeare wrote? "If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us . . . shall we not revenge?",' Yvonne quoted.

Pete looked up and around at the plexiglass cylinder. 'So what you got in mind?'

'Ah, yes. I was coming to that,' Yvonne said, nodding to Sebastian. He went to a control panel on a pedestal and pressed two buttons. Tony and Jackie's cylinders slowly started to fill with water.

Jackie looked down in horror. 'What y'doin'?' She banged on the wall of the cylinder. 'Let us out! LET US OUT!'

Pete glared at Yvonne. 'Yvonne. It's me you've got a gripe with. Leave them out of this. For pity's sake. I'll do anything you want, just let them go.'

'Don't worry Peter, you'll be able to save one of them,' Yvonne said with a menacing smile. 'You see, those red buttons open the valve and pump the water into your cylinder.' Pete was about to press both buttons. 'However. Once you've pressed one, the other one becomes inactive.'

'What?!' Pete asked in disbelief.

'Yes. You have to choose who you will save. Your son, or your wife, and I get to watch you agonise over that decision before you die,' Yvonne gloated. The water was already up to their knees.

'You evil cow!' Jackie spat. 'Pete love. Save Tony. Don't worry about me.'

'Oh, how noble,' Yvonne said. 'What WILL you do, Peter? You could let both of them die and you'll survive. Not my favoured option, but then I would get to see you try to live with that decision I suppose.'

'Jackie . . . I can't choose . . . I . . . I can't,' Pete cried out. The water was up to their waists.

A calmness came over Jackie as she accepted her fate. She smiled at her husband. 'Love, save our son.'

'Are you sure?' Pete asked through sobs. Jackie nodded. 'I love you, Jacks.'

'Course y'do.'

Pete's hand hovered over the big, red button, when he saw a draught of Autumnal air blow leaves and litter into the room. He looked to the double doors, and saw there weren't any. What was there made his heart soar.

['FREEZE! ARMED AGENTS! LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER!'] Andy McNab shouted through the personal address system of his combat armour.


	15. The Drunken Fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a surprise visitor to the Special Operations Unit, and whilst interviewing a suspect, John and Rose get a lead from a surprising source.

**Chapter 15**

**The Drunken Fox**

'I don't like this John,' Rose said as she watched her parents walk across South Colonnade and down the steps to Reuters Plaza on the screen. They were hand in hand, and looked like any couple going to visit one of the restaurants for an evening meal. She wondered if she would ever see them or her brother ever again. She shuddered and shook her head. That was definitely NOT going to happen on her watch, even though this wasn't her watch.

'I'm not keen on it myself,' John replied. 'But what else can we do? How long can we follow them on the cameras, Chrissie?'

'I'll do my best. But when they get onto public transport, it's going to be tricky,' Chrissie told them.

They watched as they entered the domed concourse of the underground station. Pete looked around and then touched his finger to his forehead in salute.

'He knows we're watchin',' Rose said with a sad smile.

Suddenly there was a commotion out in the Standby Room, and Rose went to see what was happening. She froze at the door of the Despatch Office, when she saw a ghost walking towards her.

'Andy? I thought . . . I saw . . .' Rose tried to say. 'You're alive.'

Andy patted himself and gave her a big grin. 'Yep. I kinda noticed.'

'Oh God. Come 'ere,' Rose said and ran towards him, grabbing him around the neck and pulling him into a hug.

Andy lifted her off the floor and rocked her in the hug before putting her back on the floor. 'Nice greeting.'

Rose realised that she had just hugged her supervisor and blushed. 'Sorry Captain. That was a bit outside of the acceptable behaviour policy . . . Sorry.'

Andy laughed. 'Sod the policy. I'm glad to see you too.'

'But we saw the buildin' blow up. And the agents reported back that they'd found a body. What the hell is goin' on?' Rose asked, and then John opened his mind to her. 'Oh my God.'

John came out of the Hub and kissed Rose on the cheek. 'Sorry Love. But with the ear comms being stolen, I reckoned they were listening in on our conversations. I needed everyone to react normally.'

Andy opened the rucksack and took out a high tech panel, followed by a small wooden box. 'You'll be wanting these back, Doc.'

'Ah, yes. Thanks Andy,' John said, taking the items off him.

When John had taken Andy into the TARDIS to get the rucksack, he'd already removed the extrapolator shield from the control panel and put it inside the rucksack.

"Andy. I think this is a trap. My spidey senses are tingling, and I think whoever it is wants you dead," John had told him. "This is the TARDIS extrapolator shield. Keep it with you at all times and it will keep you and Tony safe if he's within arms reach. I bet you a pound to a penny they will be monitoring our comms, so whichever agent finds you first, you have to get them to report via SMS that you, and only you are dead."

**Sandgate Street Industrial Estate.**

**South Bermondsey, London.**

**30 minutes previously.**

Andy heard the deafening boom around him as the explosives detonated. He risked a look, and saw they were surrounded by an orange fireball. Debris flew all around them, and fell from the roof as he straightened up and looked around. It appeared that he was standing in a hemispherical bubble, as though he were in the eye of a fire tornado.

He gave a single laugh. 'Well I'll be damned. He's done it again.'

He looked down at the youth in the chair and realised that he was terrified. He gently peeled the duck tape off his mouth.

'You okay son?' he asked kindly.

'I . . . Wha' . . . I . . .' the boy stammered, unable to put any words together to form a sentence.

'Okay,' Andy said. 'Take some deep breaths while I get you out of these handcuffs.' He took a set of lock picks out of a pouch on his utility belt. 'My name's Andy. What's yours?'

'Er . . . Gary. My name's Gary . . . Gary Ansell,' the boy replied.

'Nice to meet you Gary. How'd you end up here then? Where are you from?'

'I'm in care,' Gary told him. 'Been in care most of my life. They put me in a home, and I run off.'

'And you ran into this lot,' Andy said as one handcuff sprang open. 'Can you describe any of them?'

'They were all wearin' army camouflage, and there was this posh bird in charge. She said they wouldn't harm me.' He looked at the ten foot circle of undamaged warehouse around the chair. 'How come we ain't dead?'

Andy laughed. 'Because a clever bloke with a brain the size of a planet, thought something like this might happen. I wish I knew how he did it.' The second handcuff sprang open. 'So, can you describe the army camouflage? Any badges or insignia? It might help me stop them.'

Gary stood up and looked to the ground, frowning in thought. 'On their arms, at the top of the sleeve. There was this emblem, a man with four arms and four legs, spread out in a circle.'

'Virtruvian Man?' Andy asked. 'The Leonardo Da Vinci drawing?'

'Dunno. I've seen the drawin' before, but I haven't got a clue what it is.'

'CAPTAIN!' a voice called out across the remains of the building. 'How the hell are you still alive?'

'Nice to see you too, Kennedy,' Andy replied with a grin. He saw Kennedy reach his phone out of his pocket. 'I want you to report that you have pulled one body out of the rubble. Understood?'

Kennedy frowned at him. 'But Boss. They'll all be worried about you.'

'Yeah. And if whoever did this.' He waved his arms around the remains of the building. 'Gets wind that I survived, they might change their plans. And that might put Tony Tyler in more danger than he is already. One body out of the rubble.'

'Understood Boss.' Kennedy started to send the bogus message.

'And get that safe open. Doc's going to want his bauble back,' Andy said with a grin. He looked back at Gary. 'You need to come with us so you can give us a statement. When did you last have anything to eat?'

'Dunno. Yesterday sometime,' Gary said with a shrug of his shoulders.

'We've got a decent restaurant at the Tower. You can fill your boots,' Andy told him as they started to climb over the rubble towards the Torchwood Range Rovers. 'You got anywhere to go after that?'

'No. But I can look after myself,' Gary said.

Andy laughed and put a hand on Gary's shoulder. 'I don't doubt that . . . I don't doubt that one bit.'

**Torchwood Special Operations Unit.**

**Presently.**

Andy put his arm around the shoulders of a youth standing beside him. 'This young man is Gary. He's a runaway from a children's home. Ran into something he couldn't handle. Can someone take him down to the restaurant and get him something to eat please?'

'Yeah. I'll look after him,' one of the female agents said.

'Our kids are in the restaurant lounge with Alice and her husband,' Rose said. 'Explain to Alice who he is.'

'Will do.'

'Thanks Beth. See you later Gary.' Andy turned to John and Rose. 'He's a good kid really. I've taken quite a shine to him . . . Now. Bring me up to speed. What's happening,' Andy ordered.

'Come through to the Hub and we'll show ya,' Rose replied.

'Chrissie. Tell me you can still see them,' John called to her.

'They are on the Piccadilly line platform, waiting for the train. They've used coins to pay for the ticket, so they could be going anywhere,' Chrissie told them. They saw Pete look at the camera and touch his finger to his forehead.

'After they tried to blow you up, Dad had a call from the kidnappers tellin' him that Tony was still alive,' Rose explained. 'They gave him instructions to follow and not to tell anyone where him and Mum were goin'.'

'They, are her,' Andy told them. 'Yvonne Hartman. She's alive, and she wants revenge.'

'Somebody dying and coming back to life. Who'd have thought it?' John said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

'And they're out there, on their way to meet with a psychopath, on their own, with no back up?' Andy summarised. 'That's not good.'

'They're on the train,' Chrissie announced. 'I'll try and spot them at one of the stops.'

After ten minutes of searching, they realised that they'd lost them.

'Shit!' Andy exclaimed. 'They're really on their own now. I hope Pete still remembers his training.'

'Time to have a talk with Mister Suzuki,' John said. He turned to Rose. 'You up for a bit of acting?'

Rose picked up on his idea. 'Ooh, you devious devil.'

They entered Rose's office and put an armful of equipment on the table. John looked at the Torchwood Security guard in his camouflage fatigues, and gave a disapproving glance at the SA80 assault rifle.

'Thanks for looking after our guest. We can take it from here,' John told him. As the guard left, John sat in Rose's chair and put his feet up on her desk. Rose parked her bum on the edge of the desk, and they both smiled at Suzuki.

'Haruto Suzuki,' John started. 'High achiever in maths and physics at school.'

'One of the youngest undergraduates at the University of Tokyo,' Rose added.

'I'd call you a genius, but I'm in the room,' John said. He took his feet off the desk and leaned forward, picking up a scanner. 'Ever seen one of these before?'

'No,' Haruto said, shaking his head.

John looked up at Rose. 'Not a fan of the show. That's a first.' He picked up an ear comm unit. 'Seen one of these?'

Haruto shook his head again. 'Look. What's all this about?'

'It's about an ambush on a golf course. The theft of some of our tech. And an attempt to hack into our server,' John told him. He picked up a spiky ball with a handle on it. 'I'm betting you've never seen one of these.'

Haruto was looking worried. 'What is it?'

'Alien,' John replied. 'It's alien.'

'Alien?' Haruto queried. 'You mean it's from a UFO or something?'

John grinned. 'He is bright, isn't he Rose?'

'Yep,' Rose agreed.

'What does it do?' Haruto asked nervously. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

'It's a Sontaran mind probe,' John lied. 'And it does what it says on the tin. It probes your mind.'

'You're not really gonna use it on 'im are ya?' Rose asked. 'You remember what happened to the technician who found it don'tcha?'

'What happened?' Haruto asked, looking decidedly pale.

'He blurted out everything,' John told him. 'Told us he fancied Tracey in accounts. His wife wasn't too happy about that, I can tell you. We even got his bank password and PIN.'

'He's not too bothered though,' Rose added. 'He just sits in a corner mumbling to himself. Occasionally he shouts "boon docks" for no apparent reason.'

'SO, we're a bit pressed for time,' John told him. All the humour gone from his voice and his face. 'There's a psychopath out there and she's got Rose's family. We'd appreciate you telling us everything you know right now. Otherwise we can use this?' He held up the spiky ball on a handle, which if he had activated it, would have given Suzuki a very nice scalp massage.

Haruto gulped. 'What do you want to know?'

One of the communications staff from the Hub approached the glass fronted office and knocked on the glass door. She was carrying a handful of papers. Rose stood and opened the door.

'Doctor Smith. A number of faxes have come through for your attention,' she said urgently.

She handed him several pieces of paper with what appeared to be drawings on them.

'What are those?' Rose asked.

'No idea,' John replied, and started leafing through the drawings. 'They're from Alan Fabry, that psychic artist . . . What the hell? They're all of the same thing.' He held up a comic book drawing of a fox lapping beer out of a traditional pint beer glass, the kind with a handle and facets. 'You'll have to excuse us Mister Suzuki. Something's come up. I'll send someone in to take a statement.'

John and Rose hurried over to the Despatch Office. 'There's writin' with this one,' Rose noticed. 'Can't stop drawin' this fox. I think it might be important. Alan.'

'The fox . . . THE FOX!' John exclaimed. 'Chrissie. What's the search bot thrown up on the drunken fox that likes to eat fish?'

'Hang on.' She wheeled down the control desk to a terminal and started typing. 'Here we are. Loads of people feeding foxes out there. Ah. One person who works in a micro brewery has been leaving a pint of beer at night. Another works at a seafood wholesaler and leaves scraps out for cats, but has seen a fox helping himself. Both think he might have been hit by a car or something as it stopped visiting last week.'

'I knew it,' John said. Everybody grab a drawing and see if you can find any clues in the background. Oh, and Rick, can you give legal a call and ask someone to take a statement from Suzuki?'

Agents and technicians huddled around the drawings and started to scrutinise the artwork. It was very good, and very detailed.

'There's an elevated roadway or railway in front of the units,' someone called out.

'Narrows it down,' John said, and Rose smiled to herself at a memory from a different universe. 'Chrissie. Feed everything we find into your search algorithm.'

'Hang on. Is that a bus going over the factory units?'

'Narrows it down.'

'Look. The seafood place is next door to the brewery.'

'Narrows it . . .'

'Got it!' Chrissie called out. 'North Woolwich Road.'

'What?' Andy said. 'You could spit on that from the roof. The cheeky bastards. They're virtually on our doorstep.'

'Thank God for alcoholic foxes,' John said with a grin. 'Chrissie. Search the business register for North Woolwich Road. We need to know which ones are available to rent, or which ones are being rented with no specified business use.'

'Okay Watch. Get tooled up. We've got a rescue mission,' Andy ordered.

'So that's what you've called me in for,' Duncan "Doughnuts" Prescott said as he came through the door.

'Doughnuts. Glad you could make it,' Andy said. He turned to Rose who was giving him a questioning look. She knew Duncan was supposed to be on nights this week. 'I took the liberty of calling for backup,' Andy told her with a grin.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

The TARDIS was in the Vortex, the Time Rotor pumping up and down. John was on his back under the console, fitting the extrapolator shield back in place. Andy was briefing the team on the mission and formulating a plan of action. They had three possible properties to check out, and he was hoping it would be obvious which one it was they wanted. Rose came back into the Console Room wearing her black, Special Operations uniform. There was no way she was sitting out on this one.

'Right,' John said as he pulled himself to his feet using the console. 'We'll be landing as soon as we took off to save as much time as possible. Chrissie looked at the train timetables, and Pete and Jackie must have arrived around ten minutes ago.'

'Couldn't we land before they get here and stop them?' someone asked.

'To many cards to collapse,' Rose said.

'To many dominoes to topple,' John added.

'That's a no,' Andy told the agent.

John and Rose moved around the console as they prepared the TARDIS for landing. Rose noticed a message on the monitor and read it.

'Text message from Despatch. Suzuki confirms that he cracked the encryption on the comms. You were right Love, they are eavesdropping.'

'I knew it!' John declared, as they landed the TARDIS under the elevated railway, between two parked trailer units.

'Surveillance. GO!' Andy commanded, and three agents slipped through the TARDIS doors and disappeared into the night.

They kept to the shadows as they moved under the elevated track, separating out and selecting their targets. They weaved between the trailers, freezing when someone walked by. When they were opposite the target factory units, they hopped over the low, red brick wall, ran across the road, and rested their backs against the wall.

Andy looked at the display on his smartphone, waiting for the SMS messages. The ear comms were still compromised until John could reprogramme the entire communications network.

"ALPHA ONE. NEGATIVE", the first text read.

"BETA ONE. POSITIVE. WE ARE GO", the second text told him.

'Buckle up team. We are go,' Andy said.

There was the clicking and clacking noises of weapons being prepared and safety catches being taken off. Andy nodded and led the armour clad teams out of the door, through the shadows, over the brick wall, and across the road to the factory unit. The three surveillance agents joined them. Andy took the left side of the double doors, Duncan the right. He pointed to two agents and used covert hand signals to indicate that they should make their way around to the back of the unit to cover any fire escapes.

The agents sprinted down the road until they came to some flip top rubbish bins, where they jumped up onto them, reached up and grabbed the railings which ran along the road side, and pulled themselves up and over, disappearing from sight. Of the remaining agents, two lay on the ground facing the doors with rifles readied. Two more knelt down either side of the doors, ready to cross fire into the building.

Andy and Duncan placed entry netting over the two doors. These nets would reduce the doors to sawdust when activated by their wrist computers. Andy held up three fingers for everyone to see, then two, then one, and he used that last finger to press the button on the wrist computer. Duncan pressed his at the same time.

The doors crumbled into a heap of sawdust, and they could see the interior of the unit.

['FREEZE! ARMED AGENTS! LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER!'] Andy's voice boomed through his suit's public address system.

TA-TA-TA-TAP.

Automatic weapons fire came from inside. They weren't freezing, and they weren't surrendering.


	16. Resolutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose is pushed to the brink and loses it. Outstanding issues are resolved, and John unusually gives a second chance when he delivers his own kind of justice. (Think back to the Family of Blood.) This was going to be the last chapter, but then I realised that there were a few things left to clear up.

**Chapter 16**

**Resolutions**

['FREEZE! ARMED AGENTS! LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER!']

One of the soldiers had his assault rifle in his hands, and he turned to the doorway.

TA-TA-TA-TAP. Automatic fire rattled out of the muzzle.

Yvonne crouched down and hurried behind the metal chair at the rear of the room. Other soldiers moved to cover and started firing.

TAP. The soldier who fired first jerked backwards and was dead when he hit the floor.

Yvonne used the covering fire to rush for the fire escape and pushed her way through. When she slammed the door shut behind her, a device which had been fitted to the catch welded it shut.

TAP. Another soldier fell backwards, dead.

ZAP. ZAP. ZAP. Soldiers started to topple over, unconscious.

'Okay. Okay. We surrender,' Sebastian called out, emerging from behind the plexiglass cylinders. Jackie and Tony were now up to their chests in water.

Soldiers held out their weapons and dropped them to the floor, before putting their hands on their heads and kneeling on the floor.

'PETE. LOOK, IT'S ROSE,' Jackie shouted as she saw her daughter walk into the building.

'MUM. DAD. TONY!' Rose shouted in return and hurried towards them.

Sebastian still had his hands in the air and saw Rose running towards the cylinders. He looked at the control panel on the pedestal and smashed his hand down on a large button on the top of the panel. All the valves in the cylinders fully opened and water started gushing in from the bottom, causing the water to bubble and froth.

Rose jumped into the air and thrust her leg out in a flying kick which would have made Bruce Lee proud. She caught Carter square in his chest and sent him flying to the back of the room. She looked at the control panel, trying to see how to stop the water flooding in, and how to drain the water out. She glanced up and saw her family treading water as they floated to the top of the cylinders, where they would drown.

'WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?' Rose screamed at Sebastian. 'HOW DO I STOP IT?'

Sebastian was hugging his chest. 'You can't,' he gasped with a triumphant smile. 'It's deadlocked. Yvonne will have her revenge.'

['JOHN! HELP ME,'] she shouted in his head, in a total panic. He came running over with his sonic screwdriver in his hand. Pete was up to his chest, whilst Jackie and Tony were trying to breath in the last few inches of space left.

John scanned the control panel. 'Damn. It's deadlocked. When that button on top was pressed, it physically severed all the wires supplying the control circuits.

Andy had seen what had happened. If they couldn't get the water out of the cylinders, they needed to get the doors open. The doors were bevelled from the inside though, so the weight of the water sealed them tighter. He suspected that Yvonne would have made the plexiglass from a bullet proof laminate. They HAD to get the door open. And then it hit him between the eyes.

'DUNCAN. TAYLOR. NETTING. NOW,' Andy shouted, and they ran over to the cylinders to put the netting over the doors of the cylinders.

Andy pressed the button on his wrist, and torrents of water flooded out of the cylinders, knocking some of the agents and prisoners off their feet. Rose rushed forward and caught Jackie as she was swept out of the cylinder. Duncan caught Pete, and Andy caught Tony. Jackie's lips were pale and she was limp in Rose's arms.

'Mum? MUM?' she shouted, shaking her mother. She lay her down on the floor, pinched her nose and blew into her mouth. She blew again and put her ear to Jackie's chest. She could hear her mother's heart beating. 'Come on Mum. Come on,' she pleaded as she blew into her mouth again.

Jackie coughed and sputtered as she gasped for breath. Rose hugged Jackie's head and cried. 'Oh Mum. I thought I'd lost you then.'

Jackie held on to Rose's arm. 'I'm okay Sweetheart,' she gasped. 'I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay,' she chanted like a mantra.

Rose stood and turned to where Sebastian was on the floor. He was struggling to his feet using the bar on the door of the fire escape. He tried to push it open, but it was fused shut. He turned around, and Rose grabbed the lapels of his suit with her left hand, balling her fist, and shoving him against the wall. She pushed the muzzle of her Heckler and Kock under his chin, forcing his head back against the wall. Sebastian just smiled at her, which really wound her up. This poor excuse for a human being had kidnapped her brother and subjected him to emotional torture, before putting him in a glass bottle. He'd put her parents in glass bottles and tried to drown them all. He'd pushed her too far.

'Rose?' John said cautiously.

'THAT'S MY MUM, MY DAD, AND MY BROTHER,' she screamed in his face, spittle flying from her mouth. 'HE'S FIFTEEN YEARS OLD.' Tears started to run down her cheeks as flecks of gold appeared in her hazel eyes. 'GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON WHY I SHOULDN'T BLOW YOUR FUCKIN' HEAD OFF . . . GO ON. GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON.'

John gently put a hand on her shoulder. 'I can give you one Love,' he said quietly. 'Because that's what he would do . . . And you . . . are better than that.'

There was a pause which seemed to last an eternity as Rose glared at Sebastian. And then her arm fell to her side as the wolf within subsided. She released the front of his jacket and turned to her husband. He enveloped her in a hug and she began to sob. She cried like she had cried only once before, when she had been on a beach in Norway.

She cried with relief that her family were safe and relatively unharmed. She cried with anger, that these people had pushed all her buttons and reduced her to their level. And she cried with gladness that her husband had brought her back from the brink of the abyss.

'McNab to Despatch. Over.'

['Despatch. Go ahead. Over']

'Rick. We'll need some transport for prisoners, and an ambulance wouldn't go amiss either. Over,' Andy said.

['Copy that. They're on the way. Over.']

'Thanks. McNab out.'

'I'm alright,' Jackie said. 'I don't need an ambulance.'

'Mum. You all need to be checked out,' Rose told her, wiping her tears away with her palms. 'That water was freezin' cold, and I wouldn't put it past that psycho to have put some poison in it just to make sure.'

'Talking of psychos . . . Where is Yvonne?' Pete asked as he looked at the soldiers littering the floor.

'Damn. She must have slipped out of the fire escape during the fire fight,' Andy said.

'Don't tell me that psycho bitch has escaped,' Jackie said.

'Don't worry. We've got the back covered,' Andy told her. 'Doughnuts, can you take a team around the back and give them some back up?'

'Will do Boss.' Duncan pointed at two agents, and they followed him out of the building.

'You alright Lil' Bro,' Rose said as she walked up to Tony. She'd cried out her anger, and John had soothed her mind.

'Yeah . . . You?' he replied with a lopsided smile.

Rose cried a laugh and looked to the ceiling to try to hide the tears in her eyes. 'Yeah.'

They both knew that they had lied to each other and fell into a grateful hug, rubbing each other's backs to try and rub away the memory and pain of the last few hours. Pete had his arm around Jackie's shoulders as they approached, and they all shared a group hug.

['Prescott to McNab. Over,'] Duncan called over the ear comms. They felt there would be little chance of the compromised communications being a problem now.

'McNab. What's up Duncan? Over.'

['The bird has flown the coop,'] Duncan told him in a simple code he knew he would understand. ['She must have had some people on standby. They got the drop on our people and disappeared. Over']

'Are our people okay? Over.'

[' Bruised and embarrassed but otherwise okay, yeah. Her backup ran a car at them. It's fortunate they were wearing their armour. Over.']

'Okay. Upload the video from their cameras and see if we can get any licence plates. Over.'

['They've already done it. We're coming back around to the front. Prescott out.']

'Hartman's escaped,' Andy told those who weren't wearing ear comms. He heard sirens in the distance which were approaching quickly along Silvertown Way.

'What? How?' Rose asked angrily.

'Her people ran our guys over and then drove off,' Andy explained.

'Are they alright?' Rose asked as a supervisor.

'Yeah. Their armour saved them.'

'I bet she's making her way to Dartmoor,' John said.

At that point, a number of police patrol cars, with the blue and yellow, battenberg livery skidded to a halt outside the factory unit. Armed officers wearing bulletproof vests and peaked caps, leaped out of the cars and took up defensive positions, rifles trained on the occupants. The lead officer noticed the "Halo" style body armour and relaxed. He'd had dealings with Torchwood before.

'Captain McNab?' he asked cautiously.

Andy had already removed his helmet and turned to see who had called his name.

'Inspector Mumford. It's been a while, Trevor,' Andy said with a grin.

'And for you, Andy,' Trevor said, shaking his hand. 'STAND DOWN TEAM . . . I didn't think you did these "outings" any more.'

'Only on special occasions,' Andy told him.

'We had calls from some of the other businesses here about some gunfire,' Trevor explained.

'Yeah. A bunch of kidnappers and terrorists. We've taken care of it. We'll take them back to Torchwood and process them for you, and get Legal to bring the paperwork over tomorrow,' Andy said.

'Thank God you're doing the paperwork,' Trevor said with a laugh. 'Worst part of the job.'

'Trevor? What brings you here?' Duncan said as he wandered towards them.

'You lot do. How are you, Duncan?'

'Good thanks. I'd have been better if we'd have caught the ringleader though,' Duncan told him.

'Anything we can do to help?' Trevor offered.

'Thanks for the offer,' Andy said. 'We'll be in touch if we need extra boots on the ground.' He held his assault rifle out. 'We've got two fatalities. You'll need mine and Duncan's.'

'Ah. Okay . . . WILLIAMS. TWO EVIDENCE BAGS,' Trevor shouted. 'We'll get them back to you as soon as.'

They looked down the road to see the Torchwood transport approaching. 'Well, we're done here. Our forensics and clean up crews will be along soon to tidy up,' Andy said. 'Good to see you again, Trevor.'

Pete, Jackie and Tony were taken to the ambulance by Rose, and she got in with them to travel back to the Tower. The two fatalities were put in body bags and put in the back of a van. The conscious and unconscious soldiers were put in two other vans. All the vehicles drove away, and the Torchwood team went back to the TARDIS with John.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

**Meeting Room.**

**45th** **floor of Torchwood Tower.**

**Canary Wharf.**

**Friday 13th** **November 2026.**

Jack Harkness was chairing a meeting of the heads of departments, along with a special guest, the president of The People's Republic of Great Britain.

'Madam President,' Jack started. 'I understand you have an update for us regarding The Forge.'

'Yes. Thank you Captain,' Harriet said formally. 'When you contacted me and asked about a secretive organisation called The Forge, you opened a very large can of worms. It seems William Abberton had been busy infiltrating various departments within the government, and also had agents within UNIT. I've called for a public inquiry about it all.'

'What happened at Dartmoor?' John asked. He'd heard there had been a raid, but they didn't have any details.

'We sent an SAS team to the abandoned asylum, supported by One Para. After some resistance, they gained entry to the establishment and found the inside had been gutted, with a number of bodies locked in cells. We believe some of them are alien, or at least genetically modified. We'd like the Institute to oversee the investigation of those,' Harriet answered.

'Of course, Harriet. Our facilities are at your disposal,' Jack told her.

'Thank you, Jack. I'm glad you said that, because I can't trust anyone at Westminster any more. It seems Geoffrey Miller was in cahoots with them, although I think he was hoodwinked as to the connection between department C4 and The Forge. I've got ministers resigning, under secretaries dead in their offices with 9 Volt batteries in their hands. It's a hell of a mess. I'd like Torchwood to do an in depth background check on everyone if it could.'

'I'll get my team on it straight away,' Josie from Research told her.

'Was there any sign of Hartman?' Andy asked.

'Sadly, no. All the law enforcement agencies around the globe have arrest warrants for her. She's become public enemy number one.'

'She won't make it easy for them,' Jack said. 'She's demonstrated a considerable ability to not only change her appearance, but her whole personality to fit that appearance. A pregnant woman in a shopping mall, a newspaper editor, a military officer. Skills probably picked up as her time as director of the Institute.'

'We have got a freelance investigator on her case though,' John said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

'Let's hope Sarah Jane can find her soon. Because I've got a feeling we haven't seen the last of Yvonne Hartman,' Jack said ominously.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

**Psychology Department.**

**4th** **floor of Torchwood Tower.**

**Canary Wharf.**

Rose was sitting on the comfortable sofa in Alice's office with the rest of the Tyler family.

'Is John not joining us?' Alice asked. It was a rhetorical question, as she already knew the answer.

Rose laughed. 'He said he doesn't "do" counselling. Said he'd get bed sores from the amount of time he'd be lyin' on yer couch.'

Alice smiled. 'Okay. Let's make a start then. I thought a joint session would be good to start with so you can hear how you have all been affected. Maybe Tony could start us off . . ? Why don't you tell us how you were feeling during the ordeal?'

'Scared, obviously,' he started hesitantly. 'And confused. Why me? And then, when I saw Dad being forced to decide between me and Mum. I felt angry at the people who were doing it, and guilty that I was part of that choice.'

Jackie had got her arm around his shoulders, and Pete turned in the seat and hugged him. 'None of this was your fault son.'

'Too right it ain't,' Jackie said. 'It was all down to that evil cow Yvonne Hartman . . . I never liked her.'

'What about how you felt, Jackie?' Alice prompted. She had a good idea she knew the answer to that one.

'I wanted to kill her. And I would have done if she'd have let me out of that shower cubicle thing,' Jackie told her.

'Mum,' Rose chided.

'What? It's no more than she deserved,' Jackie replied.

Alice looked at Rose. 'Jackie is speaking as a mother wanting to protect her children. It's instinct, rather than rational thought, and your mother's instinct is very strong.'

Jackie gave a satisfied "I told you so" nod.

'Pete. Maybe you could share your thoughts,' Alice prompted.

Pete had a frown as he thought about it. 'I was angry. How dare she put my family in danger. And then I felt despair and guilt. I could see my wife and my son drowning, and she wanted me to choose which one I should save. I couldn't choose, and yet I couldn't watch them drown either.' He wiped a tear off his cheek with his hand.

'Oh Dad,' Rose said, giving him a hug.

'And then you start to think, "Tony's got his whole life before him, should I save him".' And then, "But I've seen my wife die once, I can't watch her die again".'

Jackie, Pete and Tony fell into a group hug as Alice looked to Rose. 'And you Rose? How did you feel?'

'Oh, I'm fine,' she replied with bravado. 'It's not like I haven't faced the bad guys before.'

Alice was having none of it. 'Yes. But this time the bad guys we're threatening your family.'

Rose's bravado evaporated. 'Yeah, they were. They were pushin' my buttons.'

'And how did you react to that?' Alice coaxed.

'Angrily . . . Badly, if I'm honest. I was full of rage,' Rose admitted.

'The report says you captured Sebastian Carter, Yvonne's right hand man,' Alice prompted.

'Yeah. He just had this smug smile on his face. I SO wanted to wipe it off his face, I . . .' Rose faltered as she remembered that moment. She looked guiltily at Alice with tears glistening in her eyes. 'I was goin' to pull the trigger,' she said, barely audible. 'I was goin' to pull the trigger.'

Pete and Jackie exchanged looks of concern for their daughter.

'But you didn't,' Alice reminded her. 'Why not? He deserved it. You'd be ridding the world of his filth.'

Rose looked up suddenly. She'd heard that expression before. 'The Doctor said that once,' she remembered. 'He wanted the last remainin' Dalek to kill itself. And later, he wanted to shoot it, but I wouldn't let him.'

'Why not?' Alice asked. She knew this was important.

'Because it would have destroyed him. He was hurtin' an' full of rage. I asked him what he was turnin' into, because it wasn't nice,' Rose remembered.

'And Carter?' Alice asked.

'John reminded me that I was better than that . . . better than Carter.' She recalled a memory John had shared with her. 'There was this one time when the Doctor's cells had been cloned and a sort of daughter had been created. She was shot in front of him, and he was ready to shoot her killer.'

'What happened?' Alice asked.

'He said he never would . . . he would never shoot anyone in anger. That was his mantra, and I suppose mine is, "I'm better than that". I hope I will always be better than that.'

'Oh Sweetheart. Come 'ere,' Jackie said, and she pulled them all into a group hug again.

Alice smiled. Their healing had begun. 'And what about the members of The Forge, Rose? How do you feel about the justice you are about to deliver?'

'I think it's fair and appropriate,' Rose replied.

'Even without a trial?'

'The evidence against 'em is overwhelmin'. Given the chance, they would kill themselves with those battery gadgets, and believe me, I was considerin' lettin' 'em do it. So even if they had a trial, they'd be found guilty. So we're savin' the taxpayers that expense, and they'd have been banged up for a long stretch, even life. So we're savin' the taxpayer that expense as well.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

'I've often wondered what a fate worse than death could be,' John told the group of Forge soldiers as he, Rose, Andy and Duncan led them down the corridor. They'd been made to change out of their camouflage fatigues, and were now wearing ordinary clothes.

They stopped at a yellow, embossed, sliding door. John and Rose had known this room as the Sphere Room in the "other" Torchwood. John held his ID badge against a disk on the wall and the armoured door slid open.

'In you go then,' he said without any emotion in his voice.

The group walked slowly into the room, prompted to do so by the assault rifles in their backs.

'Is this where you are going to execute us?' Sebastian asked, eyeing the assault rifles.

'Don't judge everyone by yer own standards,' Rose replied. John gave her a proud smile.

'We're not going to execute anybody. That was the old Torchwood. Remember that? The bad old days?' Andy said.

'Wishin' y'were back in the old days, are ya?' Rose asked him. 'Y'know what they say, "careful what y'wish for".'

'WE are not going to do anything to you,' John told him. 'I suppose it's a second chance. I never used to give people a second chance,' he said to himself, scratching the back of his head. 'Must be getting soft in my old age.'

'I think bein' a dad has somethin' to do with it,' Rose suggested.

John nodded thoughtfully. 'Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. It's going to be a competition. Quite simple really. Just see who can keep their eyes open the longest without blinking.' He touched his badge on the disk again, and the armoured door slid shut with a clunk of finality.

'Technically, we HAVE just executed them,' Rose said, holding his hand and entwining her fingers with his.

He looked down at her with ancient eyes. It was a look she hadn't seen in a long time. 'They deserve a lot worse.'

And then his expression brightened and changed to that of school teacher. 'Actually, we've just exiled them. Like in the old days, when they used to send them to Australia.' He looked at the imaginary watch on his wrist. 'Ooh look. It's lunch time. Fancy some chips? I love the chips in the restaurant.'

Rose laughed. 'Yeah. Chips would be good.'

After their lunch, they would collect the Weeping Angel and take it back to the end of the universe.

'Talking of restaurants, they could do with one on Malcassario,' Rose declared, and they both started to laugh.


	17. Loose Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here it is . . . The final chapter. Life returns to normal for the Smiths and the Tylers. A new member of staff has an unusual interview. Rose has some good news for the Watch, and Jack receives a hand delivered letter.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who left kudos and took the time to leave a comment. Very much appreciated.
> 
> All the locations for this story were sourced by using Google maps and street view. So if you want to see where the story played out, put in the street name and have a look. I found it a useful tool for writing descriptions of the locations.

**Chapter 17**

**Loose Ends**

WHOP!

Sebastian Carter staggered as his head swam and his stomach did somersaults. He was jostled by crowds of people moving in one direction.

'Oi! Watch out mate. Where did you appear from?' A cockney voice called out.

'What?' Sebastian was turning around and around, trying to get his bearings. A moment ago he had been in that sealed room in Torchwood Tower, and now . . . Where the hell was he?

'COME ON YOU 'ORRIBLE RABBLE!' a loud voice shouted over the noise.

The noise! It was a cacophony of huffing and chuffing noises, along with the hubbub of conversations and weeping.

And the smell! Burning coal and dirty steam . . . Where the hell was he?

Doctor Smith must have used an alien device on them from the archive in the warehouse. A transmat or something.

Them! The soldiers from The Forge. Where were they? Surely they were all transmatted at the same time.

'YOU THERE! GET IN LINE, AND GET ON THE TRAIN!' The loud voice shouted. 'Scrapin' the bottom of the barrel are we now?'

'What? Where am I?' Sebastian asked the soldier who was glaring at him. He could see by his insignia that he was a sergeant.

'WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU? Don't think actin' like you're a simpleton will get you out the draft,' the sergeant told him. 'You'll be tellin' me next you don't know where you're goin'.'

'But . . . But I don't,' Sebastian told him.

'This,' he said, pointing at the floor. 'Is Waterloo Station . . . And you,' he poked Sebastian in the chest. 'Are going to Aldershot.'

'Waterloo . . ? Aldershot?'

'Yes. The training camp at Aldershot. Remember?'

'No,' Sebastian answered honestly.

'Where's your baggage?' the sergeant asked him impatiently. He'd had enough of this man's attempt to try and dodge conscription into the army. He'd seen more convincing attempts than this one.

'Baggage? I haven't got any,' Sebastian told him.

'Well. It's a good job the army will supply you with everythin' you need then innit. NOW GET ON THE BLEEDIN' TRAIN.'

'Don't worry mate,' a young man said to him. 'Stick with us and we'll look after ya.' The group of friends surrounded Sebastian and ushered him on to the train.

The sergeant shook his head. 'God 'elp him when he gets to the Somme.'

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

**Interview Room.**

**Legal Department.**

**12th** **Floor of Torchwood Tower.**

**Monday 16th** **November 2026.**

'Haruto Suzuki,' the legal representative started. 'You have been charged with the offence of corporate espionage. The computer misuse act 1990. Three counts of conspiracy to commit abduction, and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism.'

'But . . . But, I didn't know they were going to do all that!' Haruto blurted out. 'They just wanted me to hack some tech for them.'

'For which you got paid rather a lot of money.'

'Well, yes. But I wasn't involved with any of that other stuff.'

'By your actions, you were complicit in the events for which you are now facing prosecution,' the lawyer told him.

Jack had requested that Suzuki be transferred from Paddington Green police station to Torchwood so that he could be interviewed by him. John, Chrissie and Alice were also present at the interview.

'However,' John said, leaning forward on the table. 'I'm betting you'd be open to a bit of plea bargaining. Am I right?'

'Yes. Yes. Anything,' Haruto said hurriedly.

'Tell you what then. Why don't you go with our head of Technical Support here, and she'll put you through a series of really difficult tests. If you pass them, we'll see what we can do for you.'

Haruto nodded vigorously. 'Yes. Of Course. Thank you.' He was led out of the room by Chrissie, with a security guard following them.

'What do you think?' Jack asked John.

'He dismantled a handheld scanner,' John told him and scratched the back of his head. 'Okay, he wrecked the first one, which was to be expected. But he learned quickly, and the second one he managed to hack, and even had a good attempt at the Gallifreyan programming language.'

'He reminds me of Toshiko in the old universe. She was a genius with tech,' Jack remembered with some sadness. 'So what if he passes Chrissie's tests. What are we going to do with him?'

'You, Director, are going to offer him a job,' John said with a smile.

'A job?' Jack asked in amazement.

'Would you rather he worked for The Forge? Keep your friends close, but keep a tech savvy genius who can hack your systems, on the payroll.'

Jack laughed and turned to his Head of Psychology. 'Alice. What's your assessment?'

'I've reviewed the police interview recordings. He was scared and had obviously never considered the consequences of his actions. I believe he truly thought that what he was doing was not illegal. Being arrested and charged was a real wake up call for him,' Alice started. 'Looking at the file Research has put together on him, he's a typical high achiever, with no focus for his intellect. He became disillusioned with the educational establishments, and drifted from job to job as he became bored with the routine. He's not malicious, just misguided. He needs challenges to keep his mind active and focussed.'

'Sounds like a perfect candidate for a job in Torchwood,' John said.

'But can we trust him?' Jack asked.

John raised his eyebrows. 'Of course not,' he scoffed. 'But I can put covert surveillance on him that even he won't be able to circumvent. And he has got the threat of prison hanging over his head if he misbehaves.'

'In my professional opinion, when he starts seeing the kind of advanced tech he can work on here, he won't even consider trying to cheat on us,' Alice added.

Half an hour later, Haruto was led back into the room and took his seat. They all looked to Chrissie for her assessment.

'He remembered a lot of what he learned from dismantling the scanner and breaking the comms encryption. He's a fast learner . . . really fast. He uses logical, investigative steps to take apart unfamiliar tech, and also uses flashes of inspiration to jump steps when there is no obvious way to proceed. He's good. Damn good.'

Haruto was grinning with pride at this glowing report on his abilities, but fell to the worried expression of earlier when Chrissie finished and everyone looked at him.

'So. What to do with you Mister Suzuki?' Jack said. 'What kind of sentence is he looking at for all those charges?' he asked the lawyer.

'It depends on the judge, but at least ten years, maybe fifteen,' the lawyer told him.

'And with a deal if we tell the prosecution he cooperated with our investigation?'

'Maybe five years.'

Jack turned to John and gave him his perfect smile. 'John. Do you want to offer him a Torchwood deal?'

John looked at Haruto with a serious frown. 'You've heard the charges against you and the sentence they could carry. So I am authorised by the president to offer you . . .' He beamed a smile. 'A job.'

Haruto frowned. 'A job?'

'A job. Did you enjoy doing those tests that Chrissie set for you?' John asked him.

'Well, yeah. It's fantastic tech,' Haruto answered.

'Good. We've got a warehouse full of the stuff. Obviously you'll be on a probation period, and any funny business and you'll be up in front of that judge before you can say Raxacoricofallapatorius.'

'No! No funny business. Honest. Thank you. Thank you,' Haruto said with relief.

'Obviously there will be conditions of employment extra to those stated by HR,' Jack told him. 'During the probationary period you will be closely monitored by Security, and by your immediate supervisor and mentor, Chrissie. Anything you are unhappy with or unsure about you report to her, Understood?'

'Yes sir,' Haruto said, almost saluting at the authority in Jack's voice.

'And we will have to monitor your movements,' John added. 'You'll be wearing a tamper-less ankle transponder which will tell us where you are at all times.'

'Do you agree to these terms?' the lawyer asked.

'All seems reasonable to me,' Haruto replied.

'Well, that just leaves me to welcome you to the Torchwood Institute,' Jack said.

After the interview, John made his way down to Special Operations to have a cup of tea, and a quick snog with the Watch Supervisor.

'I gather we have a new member of staff in the Technical Support Department,' Rose said as they finished kissing.

'Yeah. His face was a picture when we offered him a job. He's a bright lad. He'll certainly give Chrissie a run for her money.'

'I can see a good friendship developin' between them when they get over the trust issues,' Rose said.

'And a friendly rivalry, I bet,' John added with a waggle of his eyebrows.

'Who knows, if he'd had a different environment, and some one to encourage him, his life might have turned out totally different,' Rose mused.

'Sliding doors again,' John noted. 'And talking of lives turning out differently. There's a certain young lady who left school without any qualifications . . . Well, there was that bronze medal. Anyway, she left without any qualifications, and yet passed the entrance exam to the Oxford Online University.'

'Who passed the entrance exam to the Oxford Online University?' Amy asked from the couch.

John turned to her with a proud smile on his face. 'My wife, your supervisor, is an undergraduate.'

'Oh congratulations,' Amy said. She went over to Rose and gave her a hug. 'That's brilliant.'

'Congratulations for what?' Craig and other members of the watch asked.

'Your not pregnant again are you?' Jake asked with a cheeky smile.

Amy slapped his chest for him to behave. 'No. Your supervisor is an undergraduate at Oxford.'

'Wow. Well done / fantastic / brilliant,' the Watch said.

'When did you find out?' Amy asked.

'When we got home Friday. The letter was waiting for me on the mat. I still feel like a fraud though. I mean, I didn't get any qualifications at school,' Rose told her.

'Ah, ah, Wife. You are confusing education with innate intelligence, and you are loaded with the latter,' John told her.

'So what course have you signed up for?' Julia asked.

'Quantum physics would you believe,' Rose replied.

'You are kiddin' me,' Amy said in disbelief.

'I know. I never thought I would ever have the brains to understand that stuff,' Rose confessed. 'But over the years, all the stuff in John's head has filtered through to mine. To be honest it feels like cheatin'.'

'Hey you, what's forty seven times three hundred and sixty nine?' John fired at her. She'd been asked that sum once before in a different universe.

'Seventeen thousand, three hundred and forty three,' she shot back. She'd done the calculation as though he'd asked her two plus two.

'See,' He said with a smile. 'You did that, not me.'

'Blimey Rose. You'd give Gwen a run for her money,' Amy told her.

'Wasn't enrolment in September? Gwen asked, thinking back to her time at the Faculty of Mathematics, at King's College, Cambridge.

'Yeah. But the online course work wasn't posted until the end of October, so they said I could catch up if I was willing to put in the work,' Rose explained.

'Well, good luck to you I say,' Craig "Ace" Rimmer said, and all the members of the Watch agreed.

John finished his tea. 'Right. I've got to go and check on the reprogramming of the transponders, and the communications encryptions.'

'Oh yeah. What solution did you come up with?' Rose asked.

'I've developed a complex, multi frequency, digital signal which appears as white noise on a standard receiver,' John told her. 'So how will that work then?' he asked her, as a lecturer asked an undergraduate.

Rose looked up and to the right as she thought. 'The digital signal acts as a modified transport layer security, cryptographic handshake protocol. Only the transceivers on the Torchwood network will be able to interpret the white noise as a digital signal and accept the transmission. Without the handshake, you just get white noise, which makes the transponders and ear comms signals invisible to anyone tryin' to detect them.'

John kissed her on the lips. 'Couldn't have put it better myself.'

'Wow! You really get that stuff, don't you,' Jake said in awe.

At that point, the bulletin board bonged for their attention as another "shout" came into Despatch.

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**Lungbarrow Tree House.**

**Tardis Bay.**

**The Isle of Gallifrey.**

**Beta Pegasi II. (Also known as Paradise)**

**196 light years from Earth.**

Separate from her husband and parents, Rose was lying on a sun lounger with the back raised so that she could type on her laptop, whilst wearing a headset to participate in an online tutorial with the other students on her course. She was wearing her white, chamois leather mini dress, which she preferred to wear when they were at the tree house. John was on the sun lounger near her, wearing his animal skin loin cloth and a sleeveless animal skin jacket. He also preferred it when she wore that mini dress, she looked hot.

Pete and Jackie were also on sun loungers, Pete wearing swimming shorts, and Jackie wearing a one piece costume with wrap around skirt. Monday would be Jackie’s birthday, so she had been brought here by John and Rose to enjoy a relaxing weekend before her big, society party. Whilst she watched Donna-the-Robot splash in the surf with the children, and Ricky the cyberdog chase a ball which was thrown for him, Jackie realised there was a question she hadn’t asked about the events of a couple of months ago.

‘Somethin’s just occurred to me, John. Why did the mad cow ask Sarah Jane to investigate you an’ Rose?’ Jackie wondered. She still refused to call Yvonne Hartman anything other than a “mad cow”, or a “mad bitch”.

'Oh, I think I can answer that one,' Pete told her as he had a drink of his beer from the can. 'When Rose first appeared in this universe with the Doctor, I didn't know who they were, and Harriet had asked me to work with Yvonne to find out who they were. Then, when Rose got stuck over here, and I told everyone she was my daughter, Yvonne must have thought I'd plotted against her from the start. Sarah Jane would find the records in the college, and that would confirm her suspicions.'

'Oh, right,' Jackie said. That made sense.

'My guess would be that when she tried to kidnap Rose, it would have been Rose in the tube instead of Tony,' John theorised. 'When she realised Rose was going to be too difficult to kidnap, she changed to a softer target.'

Rose removed her headset, and continued typing.

'Is that the tutorial finished?' John asked her as he took a sip of his beer.

'Yeah,' Rose told him. 'I've been typing notes as we've gone along. I'll be able to complete my assignment this week and send it to my tutor for approval.'

'Oh Sweetheart. Me an' yer dad are so proud of ya,' Jackie said. 'Who'd have thought it. Our daughter doin' a degree at Oxford.'

'I would for one,' Pete said with a proud smile.

'I did have to cheat a bit at the start and use the TARDIS to catch up, as I'd started the course late. But I made sure I did the first assignment in the allotted time frame. After that, I've been doin' it all without any help.'

'I don't know how yer do it,' Jackie told her. 'Holdin' down a full time job, lookin' after the kids, and havin' to study.'

Rose finished typing and closed the laptop. 'Oh it's not too bad. As you know, the kids are brilliant, and I've got John and Donna to help me at home.'

'Yeah. And we've got this place to get away from it all and have some down time,' John said. He stood up and held his hand out to pull Rose up off the lounger. 'So let's enjoy some of the delights on offer. Last one in the water does the barbie.' Tufts of white sand flew in the air from his feet as he ran towards the sea, with the family laughing in pursuit.

The events of a few months ago were now a distant memory for the Tyler's, although it took a few weeks for Tony's nightmares to calm down, and for Jackie to take a shower without having a panic attack. Pete however, was still haunted by the choice he'd been forced to make before Torchwood turned up, but he hid it well. On the whole though, Alice had worked her usual voodoo on them to ease their minds and restore their confidence, and things had gotten back to normal.

Jackie had even agreed to keep the transponder tattoo, although she'd insisted on her own design, and the location was for Pete's eyes only. John had reminded her that it needed three slaps for her to activate it, and she jokingly told him she'd give him three slaps if he didn't mind his own business. John shuddered at the thought of where her tattoo might be. That was one image that he'd need a mental enema to get rid of. Tony's tattoo was flesh coloured until he was eighteen and legally able to display a tattoo, even though it wasn't a real one. Pete liked the look of his name spelled in Gallifreyan and decided to keep it unchanged on his upper arm.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

**Torchwood Special Operations Unit.**

**Torchwood Tower, Canary Wharf.**

**Tuesday 15th** **June 2027.**

**07:55.**

Rose took a sip of her tea as she looked out across South Colonnade and Reuters Plaza, towards Jubilee Park and Middle Dock. She could see the early morning commuters leaving the domed entrance of the underground station on the edge of the park. She noticed a woman in a wheelchair being pushed along Reuters Plaza towards the Tower. Behind her she could hear the Watch making their way from the kitchenette with their teas, coffees, and usual good natured banter.

Rose smiled and turned away from the vista outside to look at her friends and colleagues. Angel "Wings" Coulthard was sitting on one of the sofas with André next to her. She had her hands resting on her bump, and suddenly grabbed André's hand to feel one side. A big smile spread across André's face.

'Was that the baby?' Julia asked.

'Yes. Would you like to feel?' Angel asked, and directed Julia's hand to the spot.

'Hah. There's combat training going on in there,' Julia laughed.

'Okay guys, settle down and get ready for another day of wonderful weirdness,' Rose called out. She looked at her tablet at the first item. 'Item one. We had a call from . . .' She pretended to read the name. 'A nurse Williams . . . Amy had a little girl in the early hours.' The room erupted in cheers and whistles. 'Seven pounds, four ounces. They've named her Melody, and mother and baby are doin' well.'

'Oh, what a beautiful name,' Angel said, rubbing her bump.

'Ace wins the sweepstake as he was closest,' Rose announced. Everyone had put in a pound and had a guess at the sex and weight of the baby. 'Jack's sent some flowers from the Institute, and there's a card and collection on my desk if anyone wants to contribute and we'll send them somethin' from us.'

Rose waited for the excited chatter to calm down. 'Okay. Settle down. Real item one. Some of you might have seen this video which has gone viral on social media.' She displayed it on one of the media screens. 'Craig and Gwen; would you like to track down this little green media star and offer him some accommodation on Floor Thirty Two until we can get him a ride home? Item two . . .'

**Reception Desk.**

**Ground Floor of Torchwood Tower.**

Through the glass fronted reception of the Torchwood Institute, Sarah Green could see an elderly woman in a wheelchair being pushed by a young man, across South Colonnade from Reuters Plaza. They entered the building and approached the lowered part of the reception desk.

'Good morning and welcome to the Torchwood Institute. My name is Sarah, how may I help you?' Sarah said with practised ease.

'Erm . . . This is kind of strange,' the woman said apologetically with a French accent. 'But I 'ave a letter 'ere from my grandfather for a Captain Jack 'arkness, Doctor John Smith, and Misses Rose Smith,' she read off the aged envelope before handing it over.

Sarah read the back of the envelope. 'The date on the back of this is nineteen sixty seven, and should have been delivered on Friday thirteenth of November, twenty twenty six.'

'Ah, that. Yes. When grandpa died, all iz old belongings were put in a box and put up in our attic. We've recently moved 'ouse, and we found this in the box . . . Sorry.'

'No, don't apologise,' Sarah said with a smile. 'I'll just check with the director and see if he's available.' Sarah pressed the intercom button for Jack's office.

['Jack Harkness']

'Director. It's Sarah on reception. I have some people here who have a letter for you, Doctor Smith, and Rose Smith. It was written in nineteen sixty seven.'

['Nineteen sixty seven? You'd better show them up. I'll give John and Rose a call.']

**Director's Office.**

**45th** **floor of Torchwood Tower.**

The elderly woman was wheeled into Jack's office by the young man, and Jack, John and Rose stood to greet them.

'Hello. I'm Jack Harkness,' he said, shaking hands with the visitors.

'I woz expecting someone much older,' the woman said. 'I am Marguerite Laharrague, and this is my son, Jean Luc.'

'Why were you expectin' Jack to be older?' Rose asked.

'No. All of you. You are named on the envelope which is dated nineteen sixty seven,' Marguerite told them. 'My grandfather, Sebastian Carter wrote it shortly before he died.'

'Sebastian!?' Rose gasped.

'We thought it woz a practical joke,' Jean Luc told them.

'Well. I think we'd better have a look then,' Jack said. He accepted the offered envelope, which was discoloured with age, took out the letter, and began to read out loud.

" _To Captain Harkness, you should be reading this shortly after I disappeared from the sealed room in Torchwood. I do not ask for forgiveness for my actions, because they were unforgivable. But before I die, I would like to apologise for my part in the attack on the Institute and on your staff._

_For many years I have wondered how you were able to send me back to nineteen sixteen, and whether it was random, or a conscious choice . . .'_

'So he ended up in nineteen sixteen,' John said.

'Do you know anything about my grandfather's life' Marguerite asked. 'My mother said he woz haunted by 'iz past. We always thought it woz something to do with ze war.'

'No. It wasn't the war,' Jack told her. 'Well, some of it may have been.' He continued reading.

" _Whichever it was, it changed my life for the better, and for that I am eternally grateful. Had I been sent to prison for my crimes, I would not have been rehabilitated. I would have become resentful and followed the path Yvonne had taken, to revenge and retribution._

_When I arrived at Waterloo station, disoriented and confused, a group of fresh faced young men offered help and assistance without wanting anything in return. They were seeking adventure and the chance to serve their country. We became a band of brothers, and it was the first time in my life I had true friends. Unfortunately, few of them survived their adventure, and I took it upon myself to visit each of their families and tell them how their loved ones had met their fate._

_When the war ended, I had nothing waiting for me back in England, so I decided to settle in France, which is where I met the woman who would become my wife, my beloved Yvette. The memory of what I had done for The Forge haunted me, and I resolved to try and make amends. I dedicated the rest of my life to promoting peace and understanding between people, organisations and nations.'_

'Blimey. A reformed character,' John said.

'My grandfather was a highly respected member of society. He became the mayor of Montceau-les-Mines, and organised the resistance against the German occupation during the second world war,' Marguerite told them with pride.

'There's a bit for you and Rose here,' Jack said.

" _To Dr Smith, I would like to thank you for the second chance you granted me. I did not deserve it, and at the time, I did not realise the mercy you had shown me._

_To Mrs Smith, I apologise unreservedly for the part I played in the kidnapping, imprisonment and attempted murder of your family. The strength of character you demonstrated when you chose not to pull the trigger, is beyond measure. You told me not to judge others by my own standards, and for that advice, I thank you, because it served me well for the rest of my days._

_Forever in your debt,_

_Sebastian Carter."_

Rose had a sudden realisation. 'So that means Marguerite and Jean Luc are paradoxical descendants.'

'Paradoxical descendants?' Jack asked.

'The opposite of the grandfather paradox,' John explained. 'Go back and kill your grandfather and you can't exist. If you don't send your grandfather back, you can't exist.'

'I'm sorry,' Marguerite said. 'Do you actually know wot this iz all about? How a letter written fifty years ago, can be addressed to people who weren't even born? And, can you finally clear up the mystery of my grandfather's guilty secret?

'Ah. That's a bit complicated,' John said, as they proceeded to tell a tale of wrongdoing and revenge of Shakespearean proportions.

**The End**


End file.
